Friday, January 31, 2014
Man lost on the Pacific for '16 months' reaches
shore on remote Ebon atoll In a story similar to the plot of the film
Castaway starring Tom Hanks, Jose Ivan
was found on the atoll having floated 8,000 miles
from Mexico Tom Hanks in the 2000 film Castaway By ANTONIA MOLLOY Friday 31 January 2014 An emaciated man, who claimed to have spent 16
months adrift at sea, has been rescued after being
washed up on a remote Pacific atoll. The man, with a dishevelled appearance, was
spotted by two locals on Thursday when his 24-
foot fibreglass boat with propellerless engines
washed up on to the reef at Ebon Atoll, after
floating more than 12,500 kilometres (8,000
miles) from Mexico. "His condition isn't good, but he's getting better,"
Ola Fjeldstad, a Norwegian anthropology student
doing research on Ebon, told AFP by telephone.
"He has a long beard and hair." Fjeldstad said that the castaway, who was clad
only in a pair of ragged underpants, claims to have
left Mexico for Salvador in September 2012 with a
companion, who died at sea several months ago. The man, who speaks only Spanish, was able to
provide merely sketchy details of his survival, but
said his name was Jose Ivan. "The boat is really scratched up and looks like it
has been in the water for a long time," said the
researcher. Jose Ivan was found washed up on Ebon Atoll
(inset) which is part of the Marshall Islands Ivan appears to have survived by eating turtles,
birds and fish and by drinking turtle blood when
there was no rain. He caught the animals with his bare hands as there
was no fishing gear on board the boat. There was a
turtle on the boat when it landed at Ebon. Perhaps surprisingly, Ivan's story is not an
anomaly and there have been various tales of
survival in the vast Pacific. In 2006, three Mexicans made international
headlines when they were discovered drifting in
their boat in the middle of the ocean, nine months
after setting out on a shark-fishing expedition. And in 1992, two fishermen from Kiribati were at
sea for 177 days before coming ashore in Samoa. The man is thought to have floated 8,000
miles from Mexico to the other side of the
Pacific Fictional tales of survival have also captured the
public imagination in recent years. Yann Martel's
best-selling 2001 novel, Life of Pi, tells the story
of an Indian boy cast adrift in the Pacific after a
shipwreck that claims the lives of his family and, in
2000, Tom Hanks played a man stranded on an uninhabited Pacific island in the film Castaway. According to Fjeldstad, the Marshall islanders
who discovered Ivan took him to the main island
on the atoll to meet Mayor Ione de Brum, who put
in a call to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in
Majuro. Officials at the Foreign Ministry said on Friday
they were waiting to get more details and for the
man to be brought to Majuro, AFP reported. The government has only one plane that can land
at Ebon, but it is currently down for maintenance
and is not expected to return to service until
Tuesday at the earliest. Officials are considering
sending a boat to pick up Ivan. He's staying at the local council house and a family
is feeding him," said Fjeldstad, who added that the
man had a basic health check and was found to
have low blood pressure. However, he did not appear to have any life-
threatening illness and was able to walk with the
aid of men on the island. "We've been giving him a lot of water, and he's
gaining strength," said the Norwegian.
Thursday, January 30, 2014
Brain surgeon walked six miles during snowstorm for emergency operation
Doctor Walks Six Miles in Snow for Patient
An Alabama doctor describes his six-mile walk in a crippling snow storm to conduct surgery on a dying patient.
Not a snowstorm, a traffic jam or a daunting six-mile walk through fresh powder could stop an Alabama neurosurgeon from getting to the hospital where he was needed for emergency surgery.
Dr. Zenko Hrynkiw had to travel from Birmingham's Brookwood Medical Center to Trinity Medical Center to perform the operation Tuesday, but a sudden snowstorm had snarled all traffic, with thousands of drivers getting stranded for hours.
Authorities in Alabama had declared a state of emergency only for the southern half of the state, leaving out hard-hit Birmingham and sending available equipment the other way.
Getting to the hospital by car would've been nearly impossible.
Instead, the neurosurgeon decided to make the trek by foot.
"It really wasn’t that big of a deal," Hrynkiw said Thursday. “I walk a lot, so it wasn’t that big of a deal."
He said he left Brookwood around 10:45 a.m. ET — and by 12:45 p.m. he was already operating on the patient.
And the good doctor said he was even able to receive the patient's CT scan via text message while walking toward the hospital.
The emergency surgery was for a traumatic brain injury and Hrynkiw is Trinity’s only brain surgeon, according to The Associated Press.
“He had a 90 percent chance of death,” Hrynkiw said. “If he didn’t have surgery, he’d be dead. It’s not going to happen on my shift,” he added.
“Without the surgery, the patient would have most likely died,” Steve Davis, charge nurse in the neuro-intensive care unit at Trinity, told the AP. “But he is doing well.”
Google Maps estimates the distance Hrynkiw walked at around six miles.
“This just speaks volumes to the dedication of the man,” Davis said. “When I saw him, all I could say is ‘you are a good man.’"
CCTV: No more hiding place for
criminals in Lagos....Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State, top
members of his executive counciland some senior
journalists, penultimate witnessed a public
demonstration of the use of 1,200 security cameras
CCTVs already deployed in Lagos State by the
Federal Government. The security demonstration was carried out with the
aid of 27-screen video wall monitors At the event, the recorded scene of an armed robbery
incident at the Murtala Muhhammed International
Airport, MMIA, last year was relayed on the video
wall. The gang of dare-devil armed robbers attacked a
Bureau de Change, carting away huge sums of
money in both local and foreign currencies. The
spell-bound audience watched the video clips at the
Command and Control Centre, Alausa. Unknown to the armed robbers, security cameras
otherwise called CCTV cameras installed at strategic
places to monitor activities, clearly captured the
robbery operation. With this, the Police were able to close up on the
criminals who were apprehended after some months
of painstaking manhunt. The arrested criminals were
later paraded before the public and newsmen. The arrest of these daredevil robbers attest to the
relevance of security cameras in monitoring, fighting
and tracking down criminal activities in the society,
especially in Lagos which is undoubtedly, the most
populous state in Nigeria. In 2009 the State government launched a pilot phase
of the CCTV initiative. The solar powered CCTVs
were introduced in three locations in the state –
Falomo Bridge, Third Mainland Bridge and Eko
Bridge. The project, which was aimed at checking the
effectiveness of the concept, was adjudged successful. Thedemonstration of the screen-video monitors was
carried out by the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of
Science and Technology, Mrs Nike Animashaun,
using the Lagos airport scene as a case study. Ongoing activities at the airport, Agege Motor Road
and Oshodi can be monitored through the security
cameras. The screen could zoom in on individuals,
number plates and indeed anything. The Director, Computer Services in the Ministry of
Science and Technology, Mr Debola Omoboya, in his
presentation took the audience through the
emergency telephony demo and how the state had
been able to leverage on the emergency telephony
infrastructure. He demonstrated four key services namely, the
emergency telephony system, the video surveillance
system, the video conferencing system and the e-
police system which is based on the call centre
located in the Command Centre. Lagos State Commissioner for Science and
Technology, Adebiyi Mabadeje, at the event, said the
State Government had concluded arrangements to
add another 1,000 security cameras to the existing
1,200. According to him, security equipments already
deployed to the state include 1,000 plus surveillance
cameras, 66 base-stations on CDMA technology,
microwave links, normal telephony capacity network
with 3G data capabilities. He added that the
government had concluded plans to purchase 10, 000 additional handsets for use by the police, RRS, Lagos
State Traffic Management Authority, LASTMA,
Ambulance and Fire Service, among others. Already, the cameras have been deployed in critical
locations, such as Ikorodu Road, Oshodi, Agege
Motor Road and Festac. He further disclosed that
2,000 handsets had been given to members of the
police and Rapid Response Squad, RRS. A visibly elated Fashola said that his government was
planning to expand existing camera and telephony
infrastructure to support deployment of the additional
cameras to effectively cover the entire state in a bid
to make it safe and secure. The Governor was
optimistic that with all these security equipments being put in place, there would be no hiding place for
criminals in the state any more. He explained that the demonstration was a follow up
to what was started in 2008 when a pilot scheme was
located in Lekki in with one camera. The
demonstration, he said, was meant to show how far
his administration had gone in spite of the many
criticisms and doubts cast on the project. “Now we have moved from a zero camera State to
about 1,200 Camera State. How significant that is,
some numbers would show us. We are now in a
position where we are now on one camera to about 10
sq kilometers, so we are far behind other cities like
New York and London, where they range between 200 and 450 cameras per Sq km, but we have moved
from zero over 4000 Sq. kilometers and we have
reduced that distance significantly. How did we do it,
we have merged our cameras with the ones that the
Federal Government installed, so we have taken all
the feeds in here. We have moved from one small screen that you saw in Lekki to 27 screens that are
collapsible in all forms either to one big wall, three
screens and so on,” he explained. “We followed that with house numbering, all of which
are still work- in-progress and we realise that now that
we could get police to move, but how do we call
them? We moved from an 11 digit number to three
digit number, 767 or 112 because we did not think
people in trauma will remember an 11 digit number easily and how quickly you can contact the police or
ambulance is the difference between what
practitioners of disaster management call the golden
hour,” he said. Residents react Reacting to the initiative, Akinloye Badmus, a civil
engineer, lauded the governments for making efforts
to secure lives and properties of Lagosians. He
however called for regular maintenance of the
facilities. “What about the maintenance of those CCTV
Cameras, who are those committed to operate and
manage the system and the base of the circuit, are
they real professionals with tested integrity? he
asked. A civil servant who identified himself as Abiola
Akeem simply retorted: “Nice one. Let’s hope that the
National Biometric Database is finally implemented
the way it ought to be! Without that, all the CCTV
cameras in the world would be an exercise in futility.” “But, sincerely, I wish the government a successful
implementation because we shall be beneficiaries at
the end of the day. Mrs. Ngozi John, a trader, said she is not
knowledgeable about the usefulness of CCTV
cameras but said from her little understanding, the
initiative could only work if there could be rapid
response to crime scenes.
Nice
A boy from Kenya has transformed his life by
designing and selling jewellery made from
discarded computers, it appears. David Nderitu used to be homeless, but today he
turns a healthy profit by crafting earrings from
computer circuit boards, according to Kenya's Daily Nation. The sixteen-year-old told the paper he was inspired by motivational speakers who visited
the children's home that had taken him in. He makes the jewellery from old phones and
computer motherboards that would otherwise go to
landfill - "poisoning" the soil - he said. Now at school, and having obtained an official
welding qualification, Nderitu is able to create
around 60 pieces every two weeks. They sell for up
to 300 shillings (£2.10) locally, or more than three
times that abroad. Sponsors from America's Penn
State University now buy his work in bulk, the Daily Nation reports. The average annual wage in Kenya is reportedly
around £1,080. By contrast, its MPs are some of
the highest paid in the world - a recent vote to raise
their salaries to around £72,000 caused outrage, and was eventually overturned
Hero
Ten-year-old Danny DiPietro was on his way home
from lacrosse practice with his dad on Saturday
night when he thought he spotted a dog lying in
the open garage of a condo complex near his
home in Howell, Mich. “It was really cold out and something didn’t seem
right,” Danny told TODAY.com. DiPietro’s parents assured him that no one would
leave their dog out on such a frigid evening, but
he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was
wrong. After a bit of prodding, his mom, Dawn,
agreed to investigate the garage for him. “He wouldn’t give up,” Dawn, 44, told
TODAY.com. “Thankfully, he was persistent.” As Dawn walked up the driveway, she realized
what Danny had seen was actually an elderly
woman lying on the ground, waving her gloveless
hands in the air for help. The woman, 80-year-old Kathleen St. Onge, had
been stuck in below-freezing temperatures for an
hour and a half after slipping on a patch of ice in
her garage. To make matters worse, she had lost
her gloves and shoes in an attempt to scoot
herself to the front of the garage, where she thought she would be spotted more easily. And a
bitter wind was carrying snow inside. “She said she had prayed to the Blessed Mother
that someone would help her and find her,” St.
Onge’s daughter Sandy St. Onge-Mitter told
TODAY.com. “She knew she only had about an
hour left. She thought she would be gone.” Dawn immediately ran home and called 911. The
DiPietros and a neighbor came back with blankets
and chatted with St. Onge while she warmed up.
When police arrived, she was rushed to a nearby
hospital. “I was amazed,” Danny said. “I just felt really
good that she was okay.” St. Onge was released on Wednesday afternoon
after being treated for hypothermia and
dehydration. Doctors told her family that she
would not have survived an hour longer in the
extreme cold. “She’s grateful,” St. Onge-Mitter said. “She
knows that if it wasn’t for Danny's persistency, she
probably wouldn’t be here today. So he is a hero.” St. Onge has yet to meet Danny in person, but her
daughter says she “can’t wait.” The DiPietros had
an opportunity to meet St. Onge-Mitter on
Tuesday during an interview for local television. “It was very emotional,” St. Onge-Mitter said.
“Danny’s a remarkable boy, but his family should
also be getting a lot of credit. They acted on his
hunch. It was a family affair.” The two families plan on staying in touch. “We’ve made a life-long friend,” St. Onge-Mitter
said.
Very sad
A Good Samaritan motorist who went to the
aid of a man who leapt to his death from a
bridge over the M1 was also killed when he
was hit by another car. Police say the driver had stopped and got
out of his car to see if he could help the
victim on the northbound carriageway near
junction 5 when he was struck by another
vehicle. Paramedics and an air ambulance rushed
to the scene and the victims were
airlifted to hospital, but both later died. Eye-witnesses told how a man had been
seen standing on a parapet of the bridge,
near the turning to Borehamwood,
Hertfordshire, before jumping to his death. Traffic accident investigators are now
examining the scene to find out exactly what
had happened. A woman travelling in a coach described the
moment the traffic came to a sudden halt. Rebecca Martin, who was travelling
northbound on a Megabus, said: "We came
to a screeching halt and it sounded like a car
accident had happened in front of us or
something. We then found out a man had
jumped from the bridge in front of us. "We were just three or four cars behind it.
Then another car stopped and a man got
out to help and was hit by another car. An air
ambulance came and took both of the men
away." She added: "It was quite worrying when we
came to a halt and it was quite close to
being a massive accident. It is really bad that
it's happened and that someone who was
trying to help got run over is just awful." Police and ambulance services said they
were called to the scene at around 10.50am
after receiving calls of "concern for the
welfare of two people." Both carriageways of the M1 between
Junction 6 at Watford and 5 for Bricket Wood
were closed when police and ambulance
staff arrived at the scene. The southbound carriageway was reopened
but the northbound carriageway is set to be
closed for "many hours to come." Rupert Gadd, from the Hertfordshire,
Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire Police
Road Crash Investigation Unit told Heart
Radio: "A male is known to have jumped
from the bridge parapet onto the
carriageway. "Other motorists have stopped to assist to
his aid - unfortunately one of those people
who stopped was struck by another vehicle. "We have started an investigation into the
collision and deaths of both males. "We've handed the carriageway back to the
Highways Agency - once they have done
their final inspections it will re-open.
NIS Discovers `Baby Factory’
In Ondo State NAN — January 30, 2014 The Nigeria Immigration Service, Ondo
State Command, said on Thursday it
had discovered a ‘baby factory’ in Ilu-
tuntun, Okitipupa Local Government Area
of the state. The command told newsmen in Akure
that 19 men and women who were
allegedly cohabiting and producing
children for the owner of the ‘factory’
were arrested. They comprised eight men and 11
women and the owner of the factory. Five of the women were carrying
children, while another five were found
pregnant. The Comptroller of the command, Alhaji
Al-Hassan Musa, said “we were able to
arrest these people by acting on a tip-off
we got from Abuja.” “A circular emanating from the
headquarters informed us that an
operator of a baby factory in Imo State
has relocated to somewhere in Ondo
State. “We swung into action and our
investigations led us to Ilu-tuntun where
we arrested these people. “Our investigations also revealed that the
operator, who was said to be in
connivance with a Camerounian, has
another such factory in Ore, Odigbo
Local Government Area of Ondo State,”
he said. The comptroller also said that the culprits
would be handed over to the National
Agency for the Prohibition of Traffic in
Persons and Other Related Offences
(NAPTIP) in Lagos. However, some of the suspects and the
alleged proprietor, who spoke with
newsmen, denied the allegations, saying
they were all members of a family.(NAN)
''UNFORGIVENESS IS LIKE A JAIL WHERE BOTH YOU AND YOUR CAPTIVE DO THE TIME''..........What you are about to read is very important....especially when you are believing God for a miracle but have refused to totally release someone who hurt you. Is it right to give someone who hurt you an ultimatum before you forgive them? If you are still wondering why heaven has not sent your miracle,remember that forgiveness is a two way thing...it releases your open heavens and the person you have trapped with your anger is set free. What you are about to read may seem like it is too long but please read cos it might be the answer to your questions...... Hello Stella, Good day to you and your dear readers. Hope everyone is having a good year already? I really need advice; I am at my wits end and the more I think about it, the more I realise I need to share my story so that folks will advise me and I'll know what steps to take. It's quite lengthy cos it's a story of almost 10 years. Pleaseeeeee, take your time and read. Thank you all. It all began in 2002 when I gained employment in an organisation. This was a job I had no experience, but I was determined to make it worth my time and money. I'm a naturally friendly lady and I love laughing and smiling a lot. In fact, one of my ogas told me she thought I was flirting anytime I smiled, but she thought otherwise when she noticed that I smile at women too. Anyway, in the course of duty, I got very close to a guy named Mike. I later got to know we lived in the same environment and since he had a car, he was always taking me home. In 2003, we still shared the closeness and I was beginning to get fond of him. I lost one of my parents and he attended the funeral alongside most of my ogas. It was after the burial he told me he loved me and would want to have a relationship with me. I asked him if he was single and he said yes. I visited his home one day and saw some greeting cards from a certain Nike and when I asked, he said she was his ex. I asked him why he didn't get rid of the cards and he said he just didn't think it was necessary. On a Sunday morning, I intentionally visited his home cos I knew he would be in church. I interviewed two of his neighbours and they told me he was indeed single. They said he used to have a lady but it's been ages since they saw her and when they asked him, he said they've broken up. I was happy, thanked them and left. We started a relationship in March and I was happy cos I already had feelings for him. After three months, he came to visit my mum and told her of his intentions to marry me. My mum said no wahala and gave him her blessings. I had already told her about him and she knew I was happy with him. Imagine my surprise when I received a call from a woman in July and she said she wanted to speak with my guy. I asked who she was and she said she was his sister who just came in from Calabar. I was happy and told her I was yet to get to the office, but I will let him know once I arrive the office. I got to the office and excitedly told Mike his sister called me. He was surprised and asked to see the number. When he did, he said, but this is Nike's number (his ex). I said, really? I called the number again and she said I should give Mike the phone. I handed the phone to him and he shouted, why did you call this number? I went to my cubicle and my phone rang again. Nike told me, don't think you have found a husband, Mike is my fiancee and in fact, I am 7 months pregnant for him. I felt as if my world would collapse. I couldn't concentrate and when it was time for us to go home, I told him what Nike said. He said it wasn't true and I told him, true or not, I am going to your house this night. He didn't want me to follow him home, but I was adamant. We got to his house and I saw a heavily pregnant woman. Immediately he barged into his house, he started beating her. He beat her and rained blows on her tummy. I'm sure if that pregnancy wasn't heavy, she would have lost the pregnancy. After beating her, the woman pounced on me and tore my shirt to shreds. She started shouting, ha Mike, ma ba ti e je, ma wa ti e kan (Mike, I will destroy you). She told me, you, you want to come and reap where you didn't sow? When he was living in a room, I was with him and now that he lives in a room and a parlour, I want to enjoy abi? In my mind I thought, so room and parlour na enjoyment shey? After the drama, I couldn't go home that night cos it was too late. First thing in the morning, they started fighting again and I had to jejely live for my house. I got home and my mum wondered why my shirt was torn. I lied to her cos I didn't want her to worry. The third day after the incident, Nike stormed my office, shouting, where is that husband snatcher? Where is Dupe? Husband snatcher oshi? Ashawo, prostitute? Before I knew it, a crowd had gathered and they had to ask her what her problem was. She told them she was Mike's fiancee and I am dragging him with her. My ogas had to tell her to go home and settle with her fiancee and stop disgracing herself in public. Later in the day, they called Mike and me into the conference room and asked questions. Right before my eyes, Mike told my ogas I knew he had a fiancee and he told me and I insisted I wasn't bothered, that I would be the second wife. I didn't know when I started crying cos I never believed he could lie against me. He also told them I was always enticing him with gifts and money and that was why he decided to date me. I opened my mouth and couldn't utter a word. I just started crying. My ogas who were women shouted at me to stop crying and defend myself. I told my ogas I had nothing to say, but one thing I know is that even if it takes ten years, we are all going to sit down again and Mike would confess he lied against me. With that, I stood up and walked out of the room. When I arrived home that night, I ate my dinner and when it was 12 midnight, I went outside the house, removed all my clothes, including my pants and bra. I looked up to God and cried. I said, God, you are the father of the fatherless. You know my story with this guy called Mike. You know what others don't know. If it is true I knew about Nike and still insisted on dating Mike, keep quiet about my issue, but if Mike lied against me, I want you to fight for me. I commit Mike, Nike and me into Your hands. With that, I went back inside the house, still crying. Mike later resigned cos my male ogas were really on his case. They told him that if he could say I enticed him with gifts and money, then, he is not fit to be called a man. He had to resign when he could no longer bear the shame. On the other hand, I am still with the organisation and that singular case endeared lots of my ogas to me. They really showed me lots of care. All these happened in 2003. Fast forward to 2013, I received a call and it was from Mike. I was shocked and he told me he decided to call just to say hi. I was surprised to hear from him and I spoke with him warmly. 10 years is a long time to keep grudges I told myself. He asked for my BB pin and I gave him. Once in a while he says hi and I reply. I was surprised when in September last year, he pinged me and told me he needed to speak with me and it wasn't a phone thing. I told him to meet me at an eatery near my house. He came and he wasn't really looking good. He said he came to ask for my forgiveness cos he lied against me and I told him, haba, 10 years and you think I would still carry your matter for head. I told him there was nothing to forgive. He now said I should bless him and that was when I told him to go back to the office and confess to those same ogas that he lied against me. He said he would never do that. I asked him, how is your wife? Does she know you are here? He said, no and I smiled. I told him, so you want to make amends and still want your wife and my ogas to think I am all you said I was. I laugh. I left him hanging and went home. In October last year, I celebrated my birthday and one of my ogas, who works in a similar organisation as the one I work with, called to wish me a happy birthday. He said he would like to take me and my friends out for a drink or two at the weekend. I agreed and at the weekend, he took us out. We were eating cat fish pepper soup when his phone rang. I heard him sigh and say, na wah o, what is this again? When he dropped, he started a story about a certain Mike in his office. He said the man is so effective, but seems bad luck keeps following him. The name Mike caught my fancy and I asked for his surname. Lo and behold, it was the same Mike I dated. I was curious and asked him for more details. He said anytime anything good is about to happen to Mike, something happens and someone else is giving the goodies instead. He said the latest one is the issue of a car he personally approved. He said the oga patapata who is supposed to sign the final approval said he doesn't want Mike to have the car, instead he gave to someone else who is lower in rank to Mike. He said lots of good things that have evaded Mike. I didn't tell him anything, just kept quiet. Last week, Mike sent me a mail and sent a text to my phone that I should check my mail. In the mail he said, Dupe, continue to play God over my life. I know I made a mistake, why can't you just forgive me? Why must you insist I go back to that office and confess my mistakes? What's the big deal in forgiving me? We are fasting and praying in my church and one of the prophets that was invited told me to come and apologise to you and that you need to bless me to enable me move forward in life. Before this, I have been having dreams of someone asking me to come and beg you. Please, forgive me, but don't tell me to go back to that office. Let's bury the hatchet once and for all. I know you have challenges and I know you are still unmarried. What if this is because you have refused to bless me? Why don't you forgive and bless me and see if God won't turn your story around? Now dear readers, this is where I need your advice. God knows I have forgiven Mike, but why can't he just go back to the office and tell my ogas he lied against me 10 years ago? What's the big deal in it? At the same time, I don't want to play God over anyone's life. Am I playing God by insisting he goes back to tell the truth? Please, advise me.
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
Violence against women:
help us build a global
picture ...... On 14 February the One Billion Rising campaign
is calling on women and men to rise up and
demand an end to violence against women. It’s
estimated that one in three women will be
beaten or raped in her lifetime – that’s 1 billion
women. This year’s campaign is calling for justice for survivors of gender violence. As part of our coverage around One Billion
Rising we want you to help us build a global
picture of violence against women. Is it
something you’ve experienced? Either as a
woman, or a man. Or do you know someone who
has? Why do you think it happens? What do you think are the underlying causes of violence
against women, globally or in your community? What about the solutions. Have you been
involved in a campaign or initiative to prevent
violence against women? Tell us why it works.
Do you have an idea for a campaign you’d like to
get off the ground? Will you take part in One
Billion Rising? We recognise these stories might sensitive so if
you’d like to submit something anonymously, we
suggest setting up an account with a username
that is different from your own, and make sure
you turn your location data off. If you have any
problems with your submission, or you'd like to discuss your submission before posting, please
get in touch maeve.shearlaw@theguardian.com. Share your stories by text, photo or video through the “contribute to this article” buttons.
If you have a smartphone, you can also
download the GuardianWitness app. This assignment closes at 1pm on Saturday 15
February. GuardianWitness is the home of user-generated
content on the Guardian. Contribute your video,
pictures and stories, and browse news, reviews
and creations submitted by others. Posts will be
published on GuardianWitness, and the best
pieces featured on the Guardian website.
Naked socialite
jumps to her
death after
facelift By David K. Li January 28, 2014 | 3:00pm A British socialite freaked out after having
plastic surgery, stripped naked and jumped
to her death off a Beverly Hills high rise last
week, authorities said. Sandra D’Auriol, 53, who used to work for
jeweler Asprey — a favorite of the royal
family — had undergone a facelift last
Tuesday and woke up the following morning
“agitated and aggressive,” according to
investigators who believe she might have had a bad reaction to anesthesia. D’Auriol took off her clothes and went to the
roof of the Camden Medical Arts building, at
414 N. Camden Drive, on Wednesday
morning, officials said. She sat there for three hours, dangling her
feet off the edge. Police negotiators tried to
reason with D’Auriol before she took the fatal
plunge. The mother of two was based in Hong Kong. She had gone under the knife of famed
Beverly Hills plastic surgeon Dr. Brian
Novack, a Tinseltown nip-tuck veteran who
has worked on Demi Moore and other A-
Listers, according to The Hollywood
Reporter. D’Auriol was on the board of directors of the
Child Welfare Scheme, a Hong Kong charity
dedicated to helping poor kids in Nepal. “It was a tragic incident,” former CWS
colleague Avi Rai told The Daily Mail. “It has
been a very difficult time for her family.” D’Auriol, who had lived in Hong Kong since
1983, was born to British parents in India and
grew up in Singapore and Ibiza, according to
her CWS bio. “Every season, she creates one-of-a-kind
jewelry which is exhibited in various cities
such as London, Paris, New York, Milan, and
others,” the charity profile said. “She has been involved with CWS since 1999
and despite being a wonderful and busy
mother, wife and friend, she always has
plenty of time to help anyone in need.” Novack’s office referred all calls to his
lawyer, who did not return messages seeking
his comments. The cosmetic surgeon has
been licensed to practice medicine in
California since 1982, with no record of
discipline.
Most popular Edward Snowden
nominated for Nobel peace
prize Two Norwegian politicians say NSA
whistleblower's actions have led to a 'more
stable and peaceful world order' Wednesday 29 January 2014
06.23 EST Edward Snowden will be one of scores of names being considered by the Nobel prize committee.
Photograph: The Guardian/AFP/Getty Images Associated Press in Stavanger Two Norwegian politicians say they have jointly
nominated the former National Security Agency
contractor Edward Snowden for the 2014 Nobel peace prize. The Socialist Left party politicians Baard Vegar Solhjell, a former environment minister,
and Snorre Valen said the public debate and
policy changes in the wake of Snowden's
whistleblowing had "contributed to a more
stable and peaceful world order". Being nominated means Snowden will be one of scores of names that the Nobel
committee will consider for the prestigious
award. The five-member panel will not confirm who has been nominated but those who submit
nominations sometimes make them public. Nominators, including members of national parliaments and governments, university
professors and previous laureates, must enter
their submissions by 1 February. The prize committee members can add their own candidates at their first meeting after that
deadline.
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Man gets 13
years for
tricking
girlfriend into
taking abortion
pills ......A Florida man who
admitted to tricking his pregnant girlfriend
into taking pills known to cause abortion has
been ordered to serve more than 13 years in
federal prison and to pay her about $28,500
in restitution, US prosecutors said. John Andrew Welden, 29, was sentenced on
Monday after pleading guilty in September to
charges of tampering with a consumer
product resulting in bodily injury and
conspiracy to commit mail fraud. As part of a plea agreement, Welden
admitted that he gave the pills to his
girlfriend, Remee Jo Lee, in March 2013 to
kill her unborn baby. Lee said he had forged
the signature of his father, an obstetrician,
on a prescription and conspired with a pharmacy employee to order Cytotec, which
can induce abortions. Cytotec, known generically as misoprostol, is
prescribed to prevent stomach ulcers and
carries a warning that it should not be used
during pregnancy because it can cause
abortion, birth defects and premature death. Welden scratched off identifying markings on
the pills and then placed them in a bottle with
a label provided by the unnamed pharmacy
co-conspirator indicating the contents were
amoxicillin, an antibiotic, prescribed for his
girlfriend, according to court documents. After taking what she believed to be the
antibiotic, Lee began experiencing severe
cramping and bleeding, and she subsequently
suffered a miscarriage. Lee and Welden met in 2012 at a
“gentlemen’s club” where she worked. Police
investigators found text messages between
the two showing Lee wanted to keep the baby
but Welden did not. Welden’s prison sentence consists of 10 years
for the consumer product tampering charge
and 44 months for mail fraud. US District Judge Richard Lazzara in Tampa
also sentenced Welden to serve three years
of supervised release after his prison term. Lee has sued the pharmacy where she said
the drug, prescription bottle and a faked
label were obtained.
Ancient blueprint for Noah's ark found
That faint humming sound you’ve heard recently is the scholarly world of the Bible and archaeology abuzz over the discovery of the oldest known Mesopotamian version of the famous Flood story. A British scholar has found that a 4,000-year-old cuneiform tablet from what is now Iraq contains a story similar to the biblical account of Noah’s Ark. The newly decoded cuneiform tells of a divinely sent flood and a sole survivor on an ark, who takes all the animals on board to preserve them. It even includes the famous phrase “two by two,” describing how the animals came onto the ark. But there is one apparently major difference: The ark in this version is round. We have known for well over a century that there are flood stories from the ancient Near East that long predate the biblical account (even the most conservative biblical scholars wouldn’t date any earlier than the ninth century B.C). What’s really intriguing scholars is the description of the ark itself. The Bible presents a standard boat shape – long and narrow. The length being six times the measure
of the width, with three decks and an entrance on the side. The newly discovered Mesopotamian text describes a large round vessel, made of woven rope, and coated (like the biblical ark) in pitch to keep it waterproof. Archaeologists are planning to design a prototype of the ark, built to the specifications of this text, to see if it would actually float. Good luck to them in trying to estimate the weight of its cargo. So, why does this new discovery matter? It matters because it serves as a reminder that the story of the Flood wasn’t set in stone from its earliest version all the way through to its latest incarnation. The people who wrote down the Flood narrative, in any of its manifestations, weren’t reporting on a historical event for which they had to get their facts straight (like what shape the ark was). Everyone reshapes the Flood story, and the ark itself, according to the norms of their own time and place. In ancient Mesopotamia, a round vessel would have been perfectly reasonable – in fact, we know that this type of boat was in use, though perhaps not to such a gigantic scale, on the Mesopotamian rivers. The ancient Israelites, on the other hand, would naturally have pictured a boat like those they were familiar with: which is to say, the boats that navigated not the rivers of Mesopotamia but the Mediterranean Sea. This detail of engineering can and should stand for a larger array of themes and features in the flood stories. The Mesopotamian versions feature many gods; the biblical account, of course, only one. The Mesopotamian versions tell us that the Flood came because humans were too noisy for the gods;
the biblical account says it was because violence had spread over the Earth. Neither version is right or wrong; they are, rather, both appropriate to the culture that produced them. Neither is history; both are theology. What, then, of the most striking parallel between this newly discovered text and Genesis: the phrase “two by two”? Here, it would seem, we have an identical conception of the animals entering the ark. But not so fast. Although most people, steeped in Sunday school tradition, will tell you without even thinking about it that “the animals, they came on, they came on by twosies twosies,” that’s not exactly what the Bible says. More accurately, it’s one thing that the Bible says – but a few verses later, Noah is instructed to bring not one pair of each species, but seven pairs of all the “clean” animals and the birds, and one pair of the “unclean” animals. (This is important because at the end of the story, Noah offers sacrifices – which, if he only brought one pair of each animal, would mean that, after saving them all from the Flood, he then proceeded to relegate some of those species to extinction immediately thereafter.) This isn’t news – already in the 17th century scholars recognized that there must be two versions of the Flood intertwined in the canonical Bible. There are plenty of significant differences between the two Flood stories in the Bible, which are easily spotted if you try to read the narrative as it stands. One version says the Flood lasted 40 days; the other says 150. One says the waters came from rain. Another says it came from the opening of primordial floodgates both above and below the Earth. One version says Noah sent out a dove, three times. The other says he sent out a raven, once. And yes: In one of those stories, the animals come on “two by two.” Does this mean that the author of that version was following the ancient Mesopotamian account that was just discovered? Certainly not. If the goal of the ark is the preservation of the animals, then having a male and female of each is just common sense. And, of course, it’s a quite reasonable space-saving measure. Likewise, the relative age of the Mesopotamian and biblical accounts tells us nothing about their relative
authority. Even if we acknowledge, as we probably should, that the biblical authors learned the Flood story from their neighbors – after all, flooding isn’t, and never was, really a pressing concern in Israel – this doesn’t make the Bible any less authoritative. The Bible gets its authority from us, who treat it as such, not from it being either the first or the most reliable witness to history. There is no doubt that the discovery of this new ancient Mesopotamian text is important. But from a biblical perspective, its importance resides mostly in the way it serves to remind us that the Flood story is a malleable one. There are multiple different Mesopotamian versions, and there are multiple different biblical versions. They share a basic outline, and some central themes. But they each relate the story in their own way. The power of the Flood story, for us the canonical biblical version, is in what it tells us about humanity’s relationship with God. But, as always, the devil is in the details. Joel S. Baden is the author of “The Historical David: The Real Life of an Invented Hero” and an associate professor of Old Testament at Yale Divinity School. The views expressed in this column belong to Baden.
Father sues son for low-caste marriage
Father tells court that son damaged his family's status and social standing by marrying woman of "lower caste". A father in the eastern Indian state of Bihar is suing his only son for defamation after he married a woman from what is still perceived by some as a lower caste, saying he had damaged the family’s reputation and social standing. A court is scheduled to hear the case soon on the petition filed by Sidhnath Sharma who is seeking damages amounting to Rs 100,000 ($1613) and a ban on his son Sushant Jasu from using the family surname, reports said on Thursday. "For ages, it has been an accepted tradition of arranged marriages within your own caste," Sharma, a lawyer from the upper-case Bhumihar group told the AFP news agency from Danapur town, near the provincial capital Patna. "But when my only son ended that, it not only stunned me, it also affected my social status," reports quoting Sharma said. The son, a tax official works in the western state of Gujarat. He married the purportedly lower caste bank officer from Danapur, last November. Sharma, who filed his case in December 2013, reportedly warned that if his son continued to use the surname, he would ask for Rs. 10,000 ($161) in copyright fees each time he was seen using it. Mother backs son Interestingly, the son’s mother supports his marriage. "If my son is happy with his marriage, I should openly back him. Time has changed now, one should understand it," said reports, quoting her. India’s caste system has one of its strongest votaries in the eastern state of Bihar, considered one of the poorest in the country. The centuries-old caste system plays a major role in people’s social relations and can determine marriage, education, employment and land ownership. Officially, caste discrimination is illegal and violators can be sent to jail. Several couples have been killed by enraged relatives for defying the caste system and marrying outside their own caste. The government on the other hand publicly encourages inter-caste marriages and in Bihar state even hands out a bonus to the extent of Rs 50000 ($800) for those marrying across caste barriers.
Mum died after gastric bypass to enable her have a child
A woman who achieved her dream of
becoming a mum died after suffering an
infection from the gastric bypass operation
that made it possible. Joanne Slater, 38, had longed for a child
after three miscarriages. She had weight loss surgery because
medics feared her size was stopping her
getting pregnant. The procedure was successful as Joanne
went from 23 stone to 12. And she and husband Michael were
overjoyed when she later gave birth to Lily-
Mai. But their happiness turned to tragedy when
Joanne contracted a deadly infection, which
Michael believes was linked to the surgery. Earlier this month he made the
heartbreaking decision to turn off her life
support after she suffered devastating brain
damage. Today Michael said his wife’s “shock” death
highlighted the potential risks involved with
bariatric surgery. He said: “My daughter doesn’t have a
mummy because of the operation that gave
her life.” Family: Joanne with Lily-Mai in St Ives in
2010 Michael, a cancer nurse, said insurance
worker Joanne is thought to have gained
weight because of a hormone imbalance. She was offered the surgery and went under
the knife in 2005. Initially Joanne lost half her body weight and
was full of energy. Michael told how she made the decision to
have surgery after spending years trying to
start a family. He added: “We’d almost given up hope. You
name a diet, Joanne had tried it. “When Joanne had her operation, it was still
relatively new, and doctors are now finding
more patients developing problems further
down the line.” Michael, who met his wife when they worked
at a care home together, said: “She did very
well initially, it couldn’t have gone better. “She was bright, bubbly, the life and soul of
the party.” As Joanne slimmed down the couple started
exercising more, dancing and walking. In 2006 they got married and took a trip to
Africa and in 2009 Lily-Mai was born three
months premature. Happy: Joanne in 2008, three years after
bypass operation Michael said: “Joanne was so proud. She
was fantastic, everything you would want in
a mum. But unfortunately her health got
worse.” In 2011, two years after Lily-Mai was born,
the mum started to feel tired and unwell. She was found to have developed serious
nutritional deficiencies. Just before Christmas last year she
developed a rare and deadly listeria
infection. “It’s difficult - if she’d never had the
operation, we’d never have had Lily-Mai,”
Michael explains. He told how Joanne’s weight loss became
extreme, and she complained of muscle
pains and tiredness. Doctors prescribed supplements for a lack of
nutrients but her health continued to decline. Eventually she weighed just nine stone. The infection was discovered in Joanne’s
blood when she was admitted to intensive
care at the Northern General Hospital in her
home city of Sheffield, South Yorks just
before Christmas. She went into cardiac arrest on New Year’s
Eve brought on by pneumonia. Medics managed to revive her, but her brain
was severely damaged by lack of oxygen. Northern General: Where Joanne had her
gastric bypass operation and died Michael said: “The listeria really wiped her
out. “I asked the consultants if they had any idea
how it got there and they said no. “It’s a rare infection, they could only say it
was probably related to the surgery.” Joanne’s parents Rita and David, and her
brother Doyle, gathered at her bedside when
she died on Friday, January 3. Michael said: “I said thank you to her for the
wonderful life we had together.” Talking about the surgery, he added: “For
anybody considering this surgery, my advice
would be not to take the decision lightly.” A gastric bypass makes the stomach
smaller, meaning patients feel full more
quickly, and reduces the amount of calories
absorbed in the bowel. Joanne had the procedure on the NHS at
Thornbury Hospital, Ranmoor, South
Yorkshire. Before operation: Joanne weighed 23 stone Michael added: “I just wish that she had
managed to lose that weight some other
way. “I wish it more than anything in the world.” The number of people who have died after
undergoing a gastric bypass was not
available tonight. But the risk of dying during or shortly after
the operation is one in 100. Patients can die
from a pulmonary embolism, internal
bleeding, a heart attack, a stroke, or, as in
Joanne’s case, infection.
Why I Hired an Executive with a
Mental Illness by ROB LACHENAUER Comments | January 27, 2014 A few years ago, I was interviewing a candidate for a
substantial position in our firm. Although the
candidate and I had exchanged a number of emails,
this was our first meeting. We got along very well.
Then something unexpected happened: She looked
me in the eye and said that she struggled with “mental illness.” She added that she’d been on meds
for more than a decade, and that there had been no
episode during that time. But she wanted me to hear
about her condition directly from her, in case I had
any questions. We talked about her mental health, but only for a few
minutes. I had never been in this situation before, and
I honestly wasn’t sure what to say. I thanked her for
her integrity, and we moved on. My reaction to the candidate’s disclosure was,
frankly, disbelief — disbelief that she found the
courage to make herself so vulnerable before she was
hired. She had to be interviewed by other members of
the firm before I could invite her to join us, but we did
hire her — and over the past few years, she has become not only a core member of our team, but a
large part of the glue that holds the firm together. The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 prevents
employers from discriminating against people who
have a mental illness. But my experience as a
consultant at a very large strategy firm whose clients
are giant corporations had been that if someone
admitted that he or she struggled with depression or mental illness, that would often be career suicide.
Indeed, a former vice president of a major investment
banking firm, when told about this blog, warned me
against publishing it: “Clients are afraid to work with
firms that have mentally ill people on the professional
staff.” True, times are changing. We now read books and
newspaper articles written by people who are brave
enough to share with others their pain and their
resilience — but, typically, these memoirs are not
written by individuals who work in business. And
while there are stories about executives in the C-suite who suffer from depression, these stories are rare. I myself seldom heard people talk openly of
depression in the workplace until I left the consulting
firm where I’d worked to begin advising owners of
leading family businesses. Much to my surprise, I
found that these extremely successful family
business owners don’t draw a sharp (and artificial) line between “us” and “them” – the mentally healthy
and those less healthy. They don’t because they
know they can’t. Those who suffer from mental
illness are not anonymous shareholders, or nameless
employees, but rather brothers, mothers, cousins,
grandfathers, sons, and daughters. In family businesses, “they” are “us.” This universality of mental illness is not something
that is peculiar to family businesses. It is an integral
part of the human condition, and reliable
epidemiological studies confirm that there are no
families that are completely immune to mental illness.
Family businesses can’t escape these difficult emotional realities because they can’t just fire the guy
suffering from depression when he is the majority
owner. The successful families do find ways to work
together. But even then, things are messy in family
businesses, and it is out of this very messiness that
the human side of capitalism emerges. Businesses don’t have a great track record with the
mentally ill. Today, according to the National Alliance
on Mental Illness, some 60% to 80% of people with
mental illness are unemployed. In part, this is the
crippling nature of the disease. But a large part of the
problem that we have in hiring people who have some mental disorder is that we lack the sophisticated
vocabulary to talk and act regarding these illnesses.
How often have you heard it said that somebody “had
a nervous breakdown”— that vague 1950s
euphemism — and had no way to know exactly what
this meant? With problems of the body, we have plenty of words
to differentiate among, say, the common cold, the flu,
and pneumonia. Managers are comfortable with
physical illnesses. We can plan for how long the
employee will either be out of work or unable to work
at full tilt. By contrast, mental illness is thought of as “all or nothing.” You’re either depressed, or you’re
not; mentally ill, or not. Yet the reality is that the
mental illnesses, too, are nuanced. We all have more
or less mental health at different times in our lives.
But the lack of a working language, together with the
terrible secrecy that festers around mental illness, makes understanding one another, and collaborating
effectively, extremely difficult. That’s a real pity, because sometimes it’s the person
with the mental illness who can provide the cohesion,
the humanity, or the breakthrough idea that separates
your organization from all the rest. I am not a person
who romanticizes mental illness. I do not believe that
people on the edge of mania, for example, are more productively creative, insightful, or more brilliant. But
I do believe that talented people who suffer from
mental illness can add to the mix some different, and
important, perspectives. It’s this diversity that is so
crucial to good decision-making, and which gives an
organization the competitive edge. In the case of my colleague (who gave her blessing to
this piece), what she brought to the table was deep
self-awareness, a keen mind, and profound emotional
intelligence. Working closely with her opened my
eyes to finding talent – and a different kind of talent –
where I had never seen it before. And when I am talking to candidates nowadays, in the final interview
round, I ask them to tell me something deeply
meaningful to them personally. Not everybody needs
— or cares — to be so open as my colleague was, but
if candidates can’t share some vulnerability, they’re
out. They may be good, but they’re not good enough to work in any business which demands that we be
fully human.
300,000-Year-Old Caveman 'Campfire' Found
in Israel LiveScience.com - 3 hrs ago A newly discovered hearth full of ash and
charred bone in a cave in modern-day Israel
hints that early humans sat around fires as
early as 300,000 years ago — before Homo
sapiens arose in Africa. In and around the hearth, archaeologists say
they also found bits of stone tools that were likely used for butchering and cutting animals. The finds could shed light on a turning point in
the development of culture "in which humans first began to regularly use fire both for cooking
meat and as a focal point — a sort of campfire
— for social gatherings," said archaeologist
Ruth Shahack-Gross of the Weizmann Institute
of Science in Israel. [10 Things that Make Humans Special] "They also tell us something about the
impressive levels of social and cognitive
development of humans living some 300,000
years ago," Shahack-Gross added in a
statement. The centrally located fire pit is about 6.5 feet (2
meters) in diameter at its widest point, and its
ash layers suggest the hearth was used
repeatedly over time, according to the study,
which was detailed in the Journal of
Archaeological Science on Jan. 25. Shahack- Gross and colleagues think these features
indicate the hearth may have been used by
large groups of cave dwellers. What's more, its
position implies some planning went into
deciding where to put the fire pit, suggesting
whoever built it must have had a certain level of intelligence. Controversial cave Qesem Cave was discovered more than a
decade ago during the construction of a road
some 7 miles (11 kilometers) east of Tel Aviv.
At the site, excavators had previously
uncovered other traces of fire (scattered
deposits of ash and clumps of soil that had been heated to high temperatures) as well as
the butchered bones of big game like deer, aurochs and horse left their by the prehistoric
cave dwellers, possibly up to 400,000 years
ago. Anthropologists have debated what constitutes
the earliest evidence of controlled fire use —
and which hominin species was responsible for
it. Ash and burnt bone in Wonderwerk Cave in
South Africa suggests human ancestors used
fire at least 1 million years ago. Some researchers, meanwhile, have speculated that the teeth of Homo erectus suggest this early human was adapted to eat food cooked over a
fire by 1.9 million years ago. A study out last year in the Cambridge Archaeological Journal argued that fire-builders would have needed
some sophisticated abilities to keep their
hearths burning, such as long-term planning
(gathering firewood) and group cooperation. It's not entirely clear who was cooking at
Qesem Cave. A study published about three
years ago in the American Journal of Physical
Anthropology described teeth found in the cave
dating to between 400,000 and 200,000 years
ago. The authors speculated the teeth might have belonged to modern humans (Homo
sapiens), Neanderthals or perhaps a different
species, though they noted they couldn't draw a
solid conclusion from their evidence. Nonetheless, study researcher Avi Gopher, an
archaeologist from Tel Aviv University, said in
an interview with Nature at the time, "The best match for these teeth are those from the Skhul
and Qafzeh caves in northern Israel, which date
later [to between 80,000 and 120,000 years
ago] and which are generally thought to be
modern humans of sorts." That interpretation is at odds with the
predominant view that modern humans, the
only human species alive today, originated
about 200,000 years ago in Africa before
dispersing to other parts of the world.
U.K.'s Queen Elizabeth down
to last $1.6 million in
reserves after royal overspend Royal family reportedly facing money
troubles A new report claims that Queen Elizabeth is royally
strapped, and that the household has spent more
money than its allowance. A number of palaces are
said to be in disrepair. NBC's Michelle Kosinski
reports. By Alexander Smith, NBC INews contributor LONDON -- Britain's Queen Elizabeth has just £1
million ($1.6 million) left in financial reserves after the
royal household overspent on its budget last year,
according to a report by British lawmakers released
Tuesday. The royal household had to dip into its reserves after
overspending £2.3 million ($3.8 million) on the £31
million ($51.4 million) it was given by the taxpayer in
2012/13. The report by the Public Accounts Committee said the amount was "historically low" and that it
was "concerned that the household has reduced its
balances to such an extent that it could be unable to
cover its expenditure on any unforeseen events." This paltry figure of £1 million is in contrast to 2001
when the royal household had £35 million ($58 million)
in its reserves. The royals spend the money on costs
such as staff wages, maintaining their palaces and
travel. Slideshow: Life of a queen View images from the extraordinary life of
Queen Elizabeth II. Launch slideshow A restructuring in 2012 of the way the royals receive
public money allowed the royal family's finances to
come under scrutiny from lawmakers for the first time. "The household needs to get better at planning and
managing its budgets for the longer term -- and the
Treasury should be more actively involved in reviewing
what the household is doing," said Margaret Hodge,
the member of parliament who chairs the Public
Accounts Committee. The report also criticized the royals' "complacency" in
allowing some 39 percent of royal buildings and land
to slip into a state of disrepair. It said the 60-year-old
heating system in Buckingham Palace alone will cost
between £500,000 and £1 million to replace. "The Household must get a much firmer grip on how it
plans to address its maintenance backlog," Hodge
said. A Buckingham Palace spokesperson described
maintaining the royal family's estate, such as the
recent renewal of a roof over at Windsor Castle and the
removal of asbestos from Buckingham Palace, as a
"priority."
A 14-year-old schoolboy left a heartbreaking
goodbye voicemail to his girlfriend telling her
she deserved better - then threw himself off
a motorway bridge. Ben Fitchett died on August 19 last year
after falling from a bridge over the
eastbound M62, near to junction 20, on his
way to his paper round. Moments earlier he had called his girlfriend
to tell her he loved her and that she
deserved better. He also sent text messages to two other
people saying goodbye. An inquest at Heywood Phoenix Centre
heard Ben, of Balderstone, Rochdale , had
returned from a Scout camp in Switzerland
the day before his death. While on holiday his girlfriend had read a
Facebook conversation saying he had been
involved with another girl. But the night before his death he texted his
girlfriend telling her he had made up the
story for attention. The following morning while walking to the
newsagents at about 7.15am he called her
for the final time. Ben's parents Peter and Sarah said he
seemed happy after returning home from
holiday. Sarah said: “He was full of the joys when we
picked him up. He could not wait to tell us
what a fantastic time he'd had.” At around 9.30am on August 19, 2013, after
Ben failed to return from his paper round,
they began to text and call him. Police eventually answered his phone and
they discovered he had died. Peter added: "To us this was so out of
character. Nothing stood out as untoward. If
you look back and say we could have
changed anything the answer is no.” A post mortem examination found the cause
of death was due to multiple injuries. PC Helen Hallworth told the inquest in text
messages sent to two close friends Ben had
mentioned he had been self-harming. And on the way back from his trip to
Switzerland fellow scouts mentioned his self-
harming. Ben, a pupil at Crompton House School in
Oldham , was described as intelligent, active
and outgoing. The inquest heard he volunteered in a
charity shop, was in numerous bands as a
skilled percussionist and had been a Scout
for a number of years. The coroner Lisa Hashmi said that Ben had
taken his own life in a 'spur of the moment
decision'. She added: “He knew there could be only
one outcome of the action he took on August
19.” Since Ben's death around £13,000 has
already been raised in his memory for
charity Papyrus, the Prevention of Young
Suicide. Speaking after the inquest Ben's father Peter
said: "We are proud that Ben touched the
lives of so many people he came into
contact with; people who have shared with
us the endearing impression Ben has left. "We have been overwhelmed and greatly
comforted by the love, prayers and support
from all."
Monday, January 27, 2014
Saturday, January 25, 2014
8-year-old girl's letter to Bieber
Dear Justin Bieber, I'm very disappointed. It breaks my heart that
you were in jail for just one night. I loved most
of your songs. I dance to them a lot! So many
things have changed this year. This is the
biggest one yet! Why did you do it? Why did
you race cars? What made you do it? Didn't you know it was a bad thing to do? You had such a great life! I've read your books
and watched your movies. You had something
special. But you gave it up for drugs. My whole
life I have been warned about drugs! And now
my idol has started taking them! There are
many drunk people in the world and you have become one of them. That's sad to me! I think
you should be disappointed in your self. Just
take a minute to think about what you did. Sincerely,
Serafina
Age 8
Friday, January 24, 2014
West Bengal gang-rape: Young woman
'attacked on bamboo platform in front of
entire village' Now India’s highest court has ordered a
judicial inquiry Indian police escort men accused of the attack to
court. 13 men have been arrested and remain in
custody. By ANDREW BUNCOMBE Friday 24 January 2014 India’s highest court has ordered a judicial
inquiry into the reported gang-rape of a tribal
woman as claims emerged that the 20-year-old
had been assaulted on a raised platform in front
of her entire village. The woman remains in a serious condition in
hospital after a village council apparently
ordered her to be gang-raped as a “punishment”
for having a relationship with a Muslim man, who
was not part of the community. Police have
arrested more than a dozen men, including the headman of the village. On Friday, India’s Supreme Court ordered a
judge to visit the site of the alleged attack and
report back. It described the case as “disturbing”
and asked the district judge in Birbhum, the area
where the alleged assault took place on Monday,
to go to the village and file a report within a week. The court acted amid growing outcry over the
incident and the influence of village councils over
people living in rural parts of the country.
Activists have repeatedly said that politicians do
not do enough to speak out against such groups
because they rely on them for political support. “The politicians need to do a lot more,” said
Kavita Krishnan, of the All India Progressive
Women’s Association. “I remember Dr Ambedkar
[Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, author of the Indian
constitution] saying there was a gap between the
constitution and parts of Indian society. I think some politicians try and exploit this gap.” The attack, involving anywhere up to a dozen
men, was said to have been carried out after
villagers found the woman with the Muslim man
on Monday. They reportedly tied her to a tree
before hastily convening a village council. Village elders 'order gang-rape of young woman
as punishment for relationship with outsider' The elders said the man and woman should pay a
fine of the equivalent of up to £485. When the
couple and the woman’s family said they could
not pay such a sum, the headman apparently
ordered that the woman be gang-raped as a
punishment. “We were dragged to a gathering where our
community-headman was present. They told me
to pay Rs50,000. When I said I couldn’t, they
brutalised me,” the woman told The Times of India newspaper. Other villagers said that the men had erected a
bamboo platform on which the gang-rape was
carried out. Police arrested 13 men who have
been brought before a court and placed in
custody. The assault comes after a spate of high profile
rapes in West Bengal which have brought Chief
Minister Mamata Banerjee under fire for not
doing enough to stop violence against women. West Bengal recorded the highest number of
gender crimes in the country at 30,942 in 2012 –
almost 13 per cent of India’s total recorded
crimes against women. These crimes include
rape, kidnapping and sexual harassment and
molestation. Earlier this month, Kolkata witnessed public
protests against police who have been accused of
failing to act on the gang rape of a 16-year-old
girl who was later burnt alive. Amid the political row, the West Bengal state
government on Friday transferred the top police
official of the district for failing to follow proper
procedures while arresting the suspects. The woman is a member of the ethnic Santhal
tribe. Her religion has not been disclosed but
reports suggest the tribespeople are often
animist, The man with whom she had been
having a relationship for a number of years is
Muslim and lives in a neighbouring village. The women told police that the man visited her
village, Subalpur, in Birbhum district of the state,
on Monday to propose marriage, but was caught
by other villagers.
Thursday, January 23, 2014
Why male marsupials are dying for sex
There is a small mouse-like marsupial that lives in
Australia, South America, and Papua New Guinea
and that will die for love. In a brief and frenzied
mating season, the males of this species will
compete desperately for the attention of the
females, mate frantically with them, and get so stressed out by the experience that they will die,
tragically, like an army of Romeos. The
phenomenon is known as “synchronized suicidal
reproduction,” or more technically, “semelparity.” It
is more common among plants, fish, and spiders
than mammals, although biologists have known about this particular marsupial’s reckless habits for
at least 30 years. Hanna Rosin is the founder of DoubleX and a writer for the Atlantic. She is also the author of The End of Men. Follow her on Twitter. What biologists haven’t known is why the marsupial
would willingly subject himself to such heartbreak,
year after year. There have been several
hypotheses floated over the decades, but as Diana Fisher of the University of Queensland and her
team of researchers show in a paper out this week, those hypotheses are implausible. Fisher and her
team spent more than a decade observing the
mating behavior of the marsupials and broke
through years of clotted thinking about the
phenomenon. In so doing, they inadvertently reveal
how even something so straightforward as biological observation gets thoroughly distorted by
our narrow human lens on gender dynamics and
sex. The researchers compared 52 different species of a
creature of the Dasyuridae family of marsupials
from different habitats. For the species who live in
higher latitudes, the insects they eat are only
available in abundance for brief periods, and the
females synchronize their mating season to coincide with the food. They send out the signal
and the males come swarming. The males try to
mate with as many females as possible in sex
sessions that can last up to 14 hours. During these
marathon bouts of copulation, the males release
high levels of hormones, including testosterone, which in turn elevates stress hormones. "If we
humans get huge stress, we have a feedback
system and we bring it down,” Fisher said. "But the marsupials just keep ramping it up more and more
and are driven to spend all their time mating
competitively.” For years there were two reigning theories about
this phenomenon, both of which made the males
seem quite noble. The first was that the males fight
for the females, and that elevates their stress
hormones. “This has not turned out to be true,”
Fisher wrote me. “They don't fight.” And even if they did, she pointed out, fighting would be fast and
intermittent, not long and sustained. The second
theory was that the males are altruistic, and die off
to ensure that there is sufficient food for the next
generation, a reason commonly cited in nature
documentaries. But Fisher calls this one “implausible” as well. Natural selection, she writes,
acts at the level of individuals passing on their
genes, not populations of males acting for the good
of the species. In this case, the males “mate
themselves to death” says Fisher, in order to
ensure that they, and not the next marsupial, will get as many sperm as possible into the female.
They just won’t stop, until they are good and
empty, and apparently they have very large testes
so it takes a while. In fact, what previous researchers have missed is
that the mating behavior is entirely driven by the
females. They synchronize their reproductive
cycles to coincide with the available food, they
determine the length of the mating season, and
they are very, very promiscuous, mating with as many males as possible, indiscriminately—old,
young, fit, not fit, any old marsupial will do. (In
Fisher’s paper she calls the females “polyandrous.”)
The males are powerless in this process and have
very little agency. They have to adjust themselves
to the schedule set by the females, and that schedule is so stressful that they die. Agile Antechinus, Antechinus agilis, trapped during a field trip, September 2005 Courtesy Mel Williams/Creative Commons Apparently, overlooking female control is a
common “oops” in animal mating research. In
Daniel Bergner’s recent book, What Do Women Want?, he describes the great fallacy of monkey sex studies. For many years the reigning theory
was that in rhesus monkeys, males initiate sex.
But it turned out that this was only true in cages.
Once they started to observe the monkeys in the
wild, researchers saw something very different. The
males would lurk at the edges of female-run domains. “The females invited them to serve
sexually. The males remained—desirable,
dispensable—until the females lost interest in
them. Then they were dismissed, replaced.” Why
did researchers fail to see for so long that females
were the sexual aggressors? Because we want to believe that “the female libido is limited and that
women are monogamy’s natural guardians,” writes
Bergner. Luckily the blinkers are coming off. Fisher says
that when molecular techniques to do genetic
fingerprinting became more available and affordable
in the 2000s, researchers realized that, for
example, bird pairs once thought monogamous
were doing a lot of “extra-pair mating,” known in the human world as cheating, and that female
promiscuity was fairly widespread in the animal
kingdom. “It had not occurred to researchers that
females were driving so much competition (and
evolution) this way and it seemed surprising and
needing explanation,” says Fisher. “Now this field of sexual selection from the point of view of females
gets a lot of attention.” It takes years of patient
observation to reverse received wisdom—a decade
in Fisher’s case. But it seems only a matter of time
before marsupials start burning their bras.
My mum and stepdad said they can only have a baby with my help
My mother and stepfather want me to donate my
eggs to them so they can have a baby. I declined
to do so. But they have been pushing and prodding
at me about it and won’t take no for an answer.
Now my grandmother is calling me a "home-
wrecker," saying that my mother and stepfather will get divorced if they're incapable of having a child.
My family refuses to go to a donor outside the
family because it wouldn't be "their" child, and they
say my genes are 50 percent from my mother.
They also won’t consider adoption because they
say "those kids are disgusting and messed up." They plan on having my eggs harvested and raising
my child as their own. I am a university student
who lives at home, though lately I have been
crashing on friends' couches in order to avoid going
home because the situation has gone from hard to
ridiculous. My family has been controlling and emotionally and verbally abusive all my life, and
until recently I didn't realize that normal families
aren't like this. I have no way to escape because I
can't afford to move out—I have a job that doesn't
pay that well, and I'm also a full-time student. What
can I do?
Esu
- The chilling acts the 15-year-old boy is accused of defy imagination: Pumping his mother, brother and two younger
sisters with bullets. Gunning down his dad when he returned home. Texting a picture of his lifeless mother to his 12-
year-old girlfriend. Plotting to kill strangers outside a supermarket. But, family members say, Nehemiah Griego is no
monster. They can't fathom what could have gone
so terribly wrong. "Whether it was a mental breakdown or some
deeper undiagnosed psychological issue, we can't
be sure yet," his uncle, former New Mexico state
Sen. Eric Griego, said. "What we do know is that none of us, even in our
wildest nightmare, could have imagined that he
could do something like this." The family statement describes the boy as a
gifted athlete and musician who was active in
youth services at church. It said the teen accompanied his father on mission
trips to Mexico and wanted to continue a long
family history of military service by becoming a
soldier. The family disputed any media characterization
that the teen was a loner and said he had many
friends and was a wrestler in state tournaments.
His father was a champion wrestler and coach. The family also said they did not want anyone to
use the case in the nation's unfolding debate
about guns. "To be clear, our family has differing views on gun
rights and gun control. What we do agree on is
that those who wish to score political points
should not use a confused, misguided, 15-year-old
boy to make their case," the family statement
said. "We ask those in the media and those who would
use the media to make their political case, to not
use Nehemiah as a pawn for ratings or to score
political points. He is a troubled young man who
made a terrible decision that will haunt him and his
family forever." But authorities painted a far different picture of the
teen. Sheriff: Teen planned shootings for at least a
week Bernalillo County Sheriff Dan Houston said Griego
was "involved heavily" with violent video games
and that he "was quite excited as he got the
opportunity to discuss that with our investigators." He said that the boy planned the shootings for at
least a week. That he told investigators he was
frustrated with his mother. That he contemplated
killing his girlfriend's parents. That he hoped to
continue his killing spree at a Walmart "with mass
destruction" and die in a shootout with police. The teen's demeanor, as he shared all this, was
"stern, very unemotional," Houston said. Now, Griego will stand trial as an adult in the
weekend killings, prosecutors announced. He was arrested Saturday night, after deputies
found the bodies of his mother, father, brother and
two of his sisters in their home on the outskirts of
Albuquerque. Opinion: How a boy becomes a killer The tragedy unfolds The tragedy unfolded early Saturday morning,
when Griego carried a .22-caliber rifle to where his
mother and 9-year-old brother slept side by side,
an arrest affidavit said. The teen fatally shot his mother, waking his
younger brother Zephania in the process. When Griego told Zephania that their mother was
dead, the younger boy did not believe him, the
document stated. "So Nehemiah picked up his mother's head to
show his brother her bloody face," the affidavit
said. "Nehemiah stated his brother became upset,
so he shot his brother in the head with the same
rifle used to kill his mother." After that, police said, "Nehemiah stated he lost
his sense of conscience." The boy went on to kill his sisters, 5-year-old Jael
and 2-year-old Angelina, before his father Greg
came home from a volunteer graveyard shift at a
homeless shelter. Authorities believe the father, a former pastor at
an Albuquerque church and a chaplain to the city's
fire department, was the last to be gunned down in
the home. KRQE: Security officer -- Boy was a 'great kid' 'Beyond any human reasoning' Most of the victims were shot with the .22, but a
semiautomatic AR-15 rifle was also used in the
killings, sheriff's Lt. Sid Covington said.
Authorities said the weapons appear to have been
purchased legally. The Griegos also had five grown children, none of
whom lived at home, Covington said. After the slayings, Griego "spent the majority of
the day with his girlfriend," Houston said. He even sent his girlfriend a picture of his slain
mother, Houston said. Authorities arrested the teen after he attended his
family's church with his girlfriend, and a staff
member called deputies. Pastor Skip Heitzig said father Greg Griego was
also a pastor for a number of years who did prison
ministry at the Metropolitan Detention Center and
helped to rehabilitate convicts. Greg Griego also
helped them re-enter society. "The news stunned us all," Heitzig said of the
shooting. "We are doing what we can as a church body to
minister to the remaining family members. Only
the Lord Jesus Christ can heal this type of pain
and heartache, and He is faithful to do so," he
added in a statement. His church, Calvary Albuquerque, is scheduled to
hold a prayer vigil Wednesday at 7 p.m. for the
Griego family. Griego was scheduled to appear in court Tuesday
to face two counts of murder and three counts of
child abuse resulting in death, but the hearing was
waived, CNN affiliate KOAT reported. The affiliate said Griego's case will go to a grand
jury within 10 days. "This is beyond any human reasoning or
understanding at this time," the sheriff said.
Girl stabs sister 40 times
An 11-year-old Illinois girl was stabbed 40 times by her 14-year-old sister, police say, and
the reason why has many in the small Chicago-
area community of Mundelein reeling in disbelief. Police found the 11-year-old girl unconscious and
in need of medical attention in an upstairs
bedroom of the Illinois suburb Tuesday morning.
She later died. Because the sister, who called police, initially told
officers an intruder was to blame for the attack,
authorities briefly placed three schools on
lockdown. The truth, when it emerged, was even more
shocking. The 14-year-old, authorities say, repeatedly and
fatally stabbed the victim -- her half sister -- with a
kitchen knife because the teen thought she was
ungrateful. "This incident is a heartbreaking tragedy that
defies understanding," said Mundelein Mayor
Steve Lentz. "I am asking the Chicagoland area,
please pray for us. Pray, first of all, for the family
that has been devastated by this." Intruder in the house Police received a 911 call about the incident at
8:30 a.m Tuesday. The call came from the 14-
year-old girl, said Mundelein Police Chief Eric
Guenther. The teen told emergency dispatchers that an
intruder had barged into the home, attacked her
sister and then fled, CNN affiliate WLS reported. Schools in area were immediately placed on
lockdown, Guenther said. "The area-wide school lockdown lasted only 15
minutes," he said. But the teen's story unraveled quickly. Under
police questioning, she admitted to the attack,
authorities said. Feeling unappreciated The teen told police she was mad that her sister
didn't appreciate all she did for her, prosecutors
said at the suspect's detention hearing
Wednesday. WLS was at the hearing. The teen said she cooked dinner for her younger
sibling and performed other chores. She was also
angry that the 11-year-old girl had recently hit her. The night before the attack, the teen thought
about it for about 10 or 15 minutes, then went
downstairs and grabbed a knife, according to
prosecutors. After the stabbing, she took a shower to wash off
the blood, called police and made up the story
about the intruder, prosecutors said. The 14-year-old was arrested and was charged
with murder. The case is in juvenile court and a decision could
be made in the future to move the case to adult
court, the Lake County State Attorney's Office
said. Playing together Those who knew the girls said they lived at the
home with their mother. Neighbors said the
siblings seemed close. The girls were often seen playing together and
practicing cheerleading routines, WLS reported. "They would always be together," Mary Ann
Gryder, a neighbor told the affiliate. "The older one would be taking care of the
younger one, and vice versa."
A woman has been found guilty of throwing acid
in the face of a friend while disguised in a veil. Naomi Oni, 21, suffered burns to her face and chest
in the attack near her home in Dagenham, east
London. Mary Konye, also 21, dressed in a veil and attacked
Ms Oni after following her home, Snaresbrook
Crown Court heard. Konye, of Canning Town, denied throwing or casting
a corrosive fluid with intent to burn, maim, disfigure,
disable or do grievous bodily harm. She attacked Ms Oni, an assistant at a Victoria's
Secret lingerie shop, because she once called her
ugly, the court heard. Following the attack on
30 December 2012,
Konye pretended to
give Ms Oni a shoulder
to cry on. The court heard that
Ms Oni suffered
serious burns to her
face and chest, lost
her hair and eyelashes. Dressed in black,
Konye remained calm
as the jury of eight
men and four women
returned their verdict. Judge David Radford warned Konye that she will
face jail, saying: "I should make clear that, in my
judgment, this is a case that will, in all likelihood,
need a substantial custodial sentence." He thanked the jurors for their efforts, saying they
had looked at the evidence "with great
thoroughness, taking your time to reach your
verdict". Ms Oni burst into tears as she left the courtroom
and was hugged by friends and family. CCTV footage obtained by police showed a figure in
a niqab following Ms Oni as she left work at
Westfield shopping centre in Stratford at about
23:30 GMT. The jury heard the following day, Konye texted Ms
Oni in hospital, saying: "OMG, I can't believe it." The pair, who had been friends since secondary
school, fell out in April 2011 when Ms Oni allegedly
accused Konye of texting her boyfriend and called
her an "ugly monster". Mary Koyne was captured on CCTV following Naomi
Oni After the attack, Konye posted a picture of the burnt
faced Freddy Krueger character from the horror film
Nightmare on Elm Street, together with the
message: "Who looks like Wrong Turn now?" Following the verdict, investigating officer Det Ch
Insp David Whellams said: "Konye was almost
obsessively jealous of the victim's good looks and,
after a previous argument between them, hatched
an almost unbelievable plan to attack her with acid. "The victim's life has been changed forever and she
will always bear the scars of what happened, but
she has been incredibly brave and I am pleased she
has seen justice done today." Konye will be sentenced at Snaresbrook Crown
Court on 7 March.
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