Environmental health officers call for smoking ban in playgrounds —  Zoos and anywhere children play should become no-smoking zones, says Chartered Institute of Environmental Health   Smoking should be banned in all parks and playgrounds to reduce the chances of children growing up thinking that using cigarettes is normal, environmental health officers have told ministers. Zoos, theme parks and anywhere else children play should also become no-smoking zones, in a significant proposed expansion of the outdoor areas in which smokers cannot light up. Smoking has been illegal in enclosed public places such as bars, nightclubs and restaurants, as well as public transport and work vehicles, across the UK since 2007. But the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health said on Monday it wants local councils to designate any place where children play or learn as a smoking exclusion zone, although adherence would be voluntary, not statutory. Banning it in those locations would also protect children from secondhand smoke, it says. A new YouGov poll commissioned by the CIEH shows that 89% of 4,300 adults surveyed back a ban on smoking in children’s play areas, while 57% want it to end in public parks. “It is abundantly clear that the vast majority of people would support restrictions on smoking in children’s play areas. We would like to see smoking being stubbed out wherever children play or learn,” said Anne Godfrey, the CIEH chief executive. “This would not only include children’s playgrounds but could see no-smoking zones extended to public parks, zoos and theme parks. Children should be able to have fun and enjoy themselves without seeing someone smoking and thinking this is normal behaviour,” she added. Some councils have already moved to try to stop people smoking in some outdoor places. For example, Coventry city council has asked parents not to smoke outside the gates of its 82 primary schools. The policy has gone down well with parents and headteachers, the council said. Advertisement Wrexham has also decreed that playgrounds, school gates and bus shelters should be regarded as smoke-free places, while Nottingham city council seeks to ensure that all its outdoor attractions are smoke-free for the six weeks of the school summer holidays. “Public opinion – and not just among parents – has swung heavily in favour of protecting children from exposure to tobacco smoke and from the behavioural cues children pick up from seeing adults smoking. This is a real opportunity to make it easier for children to grow up healthy,” said Jim McManus, the director of public health at Hertfordshire county council. “Parents and children, when given the choice, are overwhelmingly supportive of smoke-free playground. Local voluntary schemes have been popular. It’s time to give parents what they are asking for. You might feel like this is the nanny state – you’d be wrong,” McManus added. Forest, the smokers’ rights group, called to the plan “Orwellian”. Its director, Simon Clark, said: “Extending the smoking ban to outdoor parks and play areas would be a gross overreaction. There’s no evidence that a significant number of people smoke near children in outdoor areas, nor is there evidence that smoking outside is a threat to anyone else’s health.” Clark added: “Public parks are for the enjoyment of everyone, including smokers. Most smokers use their common sense and smoke accordingly. They don’t need government dictating how they behave. The idea that children should be protected from the sight of someone smoking is Orwellian. Adults can’t be expected to be perfect role models for other people’s children.” The owners of zoos and theme parks, because they are private businesses, should be allowed to decide whether smoking is banned, Clark said. It became illegal last October to smoke in a car in England or Wales carrying anyone under the age of 18. New figures last week showed that the proportion of adults in England who smoke had fallen to a record low of 16.9%. Deborah Arnott, the director of Action on Smoking and Health, said: “While the ban on smoking in indoor public places resulted in significant health benefits, thousands of children are still exposed to smoke in the home and elsewhere. Growing up in a smoke-free environment is one of the best ways of ensuring that they are not attracted to smoking and lured into a lifelong addiction and ill-health.”     Article Title:‘Mouse droppings were everywhere’: a day in the life of a food inspector   Article URL: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/25/day-in-life-food-safety-inspector-newham-east-london-hygiene   Article author(s) Kate Lyons   Article date: Sunday 25 September 2016 17.57 EDT Last modified on Monday 26 September 201609.26 EDT   News source: theguardian    Sharon Nkansah has worked on the food safety frontline in Newham, London, for 10 years, and seen the good, bad and the ugly   When you’ve been a food safety inspector for as long as Sharon Nkansah, you know how to smell a rat. “Last month, there was a place I inspected [where] I walked in and you could smell it,” she says. “You can smell mouse activity. They had droppings in fridges, where they have their sauces, where they have their cutlery; the droppings were everywhere. So I just said: ‘Pull the shutters down’.” You also learn tricks to catch out wily business owners. The best time to inspect a suspect business is in the morning, she says, before staff have had a chance to sweep up anything nasty deposited overnight. Nkansah has worked as a food safety inspector for Newham borough council in east London for 10 years. As we move between businesses throughout the day, she is fun and chatty, talking about her children and her recent holiday, but as soon as she’s in a kitchen, her bright patterned dress is covered with a white coat and her braids are tucked under a hairnet. She becomes brisk, businesslike, at times tough. Her repeated refrain, delivered to staff at the takeaways she inspects who ask her for food hygiene advice, is: “I am not here to train you, I am here to enforce.” A firm approach is needed in Newham. A Guardian analysis of Food Standards Agency data found that the borough has the lowest food hygiene scores in the country: 26% of its food businesses fail inspections, rising to 50.4% for takeaways. Far from being embarrassed by these numbers, Matthew Collins, a principal environmental health officer at the council, and Nkansah’s boss, sees them as a point of pride. “I think it’s an indication that we’re out doing our jobs,” he says. Nkansah began her career as a chef, but wanted a job with more child-friendly hours after having children, so did a one-year degree in food hygiene and began working as an inspector in Newham. Advertisement Cuts to local government funding have meant the number of food inspectors has declined in recent years. The ratio of food safety inspectors to businesses has dropped from 4.2 full-time inspectors per 1,000 food businesses in 2012-13, to 3.7 per 1,000 in 2014-15. This figure is dragged down considerably by England, where there are only 3.2 officers per 1,000 businesses, compared with 5.7 per 1,000 in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The job, says Nkansah, is satisfying, but it comes at a cost: she has seen what goes on in the back rooms of takeaways, cafes and restaurants. Before going to a new restaurant, Nkansah says she always looks up its food safety rating. When asked if she would eat somewhere that scored zero, one or two, Nkansah is appalled. “Absolutely not,” she says. On a good day, Nkansah can inspect three establishments. On a bad day, if she visits businesses where standards are very poor and the management is either belligerent or impossible to track down, she can spend half a day trying to evaluate one. KFC: High Street North, East Ham Nkansah starts at KFC on the high street. She is expecting big things here: large chains often do well with food safety and at its previous inspection in March 2014, this KFC branch was given the highest possible score of five. Inside the KFC kitchen, the first thing Nkansah does is wash her hands. “It’s a way of testing if they have adequate hand-washing facilities. If they don’t, that’s not a good start,” she says. KFC’s hand-washing station passes muster and Nkansah then works her way through the kitchen, starting at the entry point for deliveries, before moving on to the tills. Nkansah is happy with everything – the general cleanliness of the kitchen, the way food is stored and the waste management system. The temperature of the freezer and fridges are good, and she is pleased to see a designated raw chicken preparation area. “They’ve got good separation,” Nkansah says approvingly of the way the fridges are organised: raw chicken is stored on the left, while other products, such as milk, salad and Pepsi, are on the right. “They will maintain their five stars as long as their paperwork is in order,” she tells me as we wind up. When we leave the kitchen, two customers sitting down to chicken wraps and a large serving of chips look up at us, with our white coats and hairnets, in a concerned manner. “Is it all right in there?” one man asks, voice lowered. “Yes,” we assure him. “Looks good.” They nod and tuck into their meal. King’s Peri Peri Chicken: High Street South, East Ham Next is a visit to King’s Peri Peri Chicken. The inspection is a follow-up after the shop was given a score of zero, the lowest possible, in March. Nkansah is back to see if it has made improvements. What were the issues at the last visit? “Oh, everything,” she says. Most significantly, there was no hand-washing station, meaning that employees were either washing their hands in the large washing-up sink or not at all. Today, Nkansah is pleased to see that a hand-washing sink has been installed. The manager is not in, so a staff member shows us around the property, starting with the food preparation area, which is in a basement below the shop. It is small and dark, and the floor is slippery with oil, but quite cool, which Nkansah says is a point in the restaurant’s favour. On the bench is a large plastic crate full of flour in which the raw chicken is tossed before being taken upstairs to be fried. There are two other containers on shelves below the work surface, each holding flour, bits of which are stuck to the sides of the container with, Nkansah assumes, chicken juice. She worries that the same flour is used to coat chicken day in and day out. The chef, who has been working at the shop for two weeks, struggles to understand Nkansah’s questions about how often they are cleaned, first saying they were cleaned every week, then every day and then every two days. It is unclear how much of this is a language barrier and how much is his uncertainty about the details of the cleaning schedule. “I’ve been in this business for a long time,” says Nkansah, gesturing to the crates. “This is not today’s flour.” Storage is also a problem: food should be kept on shelves off the ground. But a bag of rice and a sack of chicken breading mix, both open, and a bag of bread rolls, are on the floor. A large rice cooker sits in the corner of the kitchen next to cleaning chemicals. Nkansah looks into the fridge, which she says is kept at a good temperature, and pulls out large open tins of jalapeños and olives, as well as a large uncovered saucepan of sticky sauce meant to go on rice. “This is one of my pet hates,” says Nkansah. “I wouldn’t even do this at home, putting the whole pot in the fridge.” She orders the staff to throw out the contents of the saucepan and both tins. Nkansah revisits the shop a week later when the manager is in. He shows her the food safety paperwork. Because the shop had taken some measures to improve standards since the March inspection, it is rated up from a zero, meaning “urgent improvement necessary”, to a two, signifying “improvement necessary”. As we leave the shop, we pass a long queue of people waiting to buy chicken and I wonder whether they would keep standing in line if they knew the store’s food safety rating. There is evidence that forcing businesses to display their food hygiene scores improves quality. When Wales made it mandatory for businesses to publicly display their ratings in November 2013, the proportion of places with a zero rating fell from 0.6% to the current rate of 0.2%. Northern Ireland will introduce a similar mandatory display policy on 7 October, but publicly displaying ratings is not mandatory in England or Scotland. Agraba Grill: Barking Road, East Ham The final visit for the day is supposed to be to a chicken shop, Peri Peri de Griller, which Nkansah shut down in July. She is back to see if it has improved conditions and can be allowed to reopen. Instead, we find that the shop has been sold and a new store, Agraba Grill, has opened in the same location. It is in its second week of operation. The business is a Turkish takeaway, advertising kofta, kebabs and falafel wraps, but it still seems to sell a lot of fried chicken. Again, the manager is not in, so someone who says he is a friend of the manager shows Nkansah the premises. Walking through the kitchen, the problems are immediately evident. The food preparation area, covering half of the kitchen, has no lights. “Can I tell you one thing?” Nkansah says. “You cannot be running this food business in this darkness, it will not help you.” She moves on to the other problems, among them the ceiling, which has a large hole, and an open drain. “You see, all these holes is where you can get cockroaches,” she says. There are large piles of junk in the back of the kitchen – an old cooker, bags of rubbish and stacks of boxes. “If pests come in, they’re going to live in there and breed, so all the boxes and things you don’t need, they need to go,” Nkansah says. There are other problems. There is no basin in the staff toilet – “So where do you think they’re washing their hands?” Nkansah asks, with a raised eyebrow – and she is unimpressed to find an ashtray in the kitchen. “If someone is smoking back here, they need to stop, it’s illegal,” she says. Nkansah is immediately reassured that no one does. Mostly, she is frustrated that conditions have not improved since the previous business was shut down. Places that are closed down cannot be reopened without being reinspected, but they can be sold on. Owners of a new food business are required to register it with the council 28 days before they start operating, which leads to a food safety inspection, often within a month of operation. But this direction is frequently ignored and Collins says he knows of just one instance of a successful prosecution of a business for failing to register with the council. Nkansah and Collins are adamant that the way to combat this problem is to introduce licences for food businesses, which would require owners to show proof of food safety training before they start serving customers. Checking back with the council two weeks later, Collins tells me that the business has been sold again – the shop now has its fifth owner in nine months. The new proprietor is working with the council on improving standards at the premises before opening. Back in the office, inspections done for the day, the food safety team are deciding where to go for a late lunch. But with the morning’s inspections playing on their minds, they opt for a safe bet: McDonald’s on the high street, food safety rating five.   Article Title:Greeks Appeal for Aid After Fire Damages Refugee Camp   Article URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/21/world/europe/refugee-camp-greece-fire.html?ref=europe Article author(s) NIKI KITSANTONIS Article date: SEPT. 20, 2016 News source: nytimes ATHENS — Thousands of people were left homeless after a fire tore through a refugee camp Monday night on the Aegean island of Lesbos, and the Greek authorities appealed on Tuesday to the European Union for more support in managing the migration crisis. The fire, which started in the island’s main Moria camp, destroyed 50 prefabricated homes and dozens of tents, driving 4,400 migrants into nearby fields, according to humanitarian aid workers. Footage aired on Greek television showed the bulk of the camp in flames. About 100 unaccompanied children were the first to be resettled to a hostel Monday night, and about half the families had returned to the Moria camp by midday on Tuesday. The Shipping Ministry said it would send a vessel to anchor at the island, providing temporary accommodation for about 1,000 of the migrants. “Things are very difficult,” an Interior Ministry official, Nikos Toskas, told Greek radio. “The Europeans must send real, genuine aid,” he said. He condemned European countries that “build fences and then send blankets,” an apparent reference to Balkan states that closed their borders to migrants this year, leaving thousands trapped in Greece. The cause of the blaze remained unclear. Local news media said clashes had broken out between different ethnic groups in the camp amid rumors that large numbers of migrants would be sent back to Turkey. The police detained nine camp residents. Earlier in the day, residents protested, calling for the migrants to leave the island. In the wake of the unrest, Mr. Toskas said, two riot police units would be sent to the island. A spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said frustrations had frequently bubbled over into clashes in camps, as many migrants have been living in poor conditions for months amid uncertainty about their future. “These people gave up everything to seek a better life months ago, and now they’re stuck,” said Roland Schoenbauer, the agency’s representative in Greece. He said frustrations and tension were being fueled by the slow pace at which the Greek authorities were processing the migrants’ asylum applications, and a sluggish European relocation program that has moved 3,700 people to other countries from Greece over the past year, far short of the target of 66,400. If the pace does not pick up, “it will take several years to resolve the problem,” Mr. Schoenbauer said. “This is not going to go away,” he continued, adding that economic migrants who do not merit asylum should be repatriated “in a humane and dignified way” to free up space at the camps. More than 60,000 refugees or asylum seekers are in Greece, the vast majority in camps across the country, most of them cramped and dirty. Over 5,700 are on Lesbos, which has borne the brunt of the migrant influx into Greece. Arrivals from neighboring Turkey have dropped since the peak of the crisis this time last year, when thousands made the short, perilous journey across the Aegean Sea aboard rickety boats, many drowning in the attempt. An agreement in March between the European Union and Turkey to curb human smuggling across the Aegean reduced the arrivals to virtually zero. However, there has been a significant uptick since July, after the failed coup attempt in Turkey. Now scores, sometimes hundreds, are arriving daily. The increase in arrivals and rising tensions in the camps have fueled protests in some communities close to state-run camps where many residents are fed up with the growing migrant populations. Last week, residents on another Aegean island, Chios, protested. The upheaval has been exploited by members of far-right groups who have also protested, often clashing with more moderate demonstrators. Mayor Spyros Galinos of Lesbos said the protests were being “guided by certain circles, far-right circles who are being supported by members of other parties that have found the opportunity to boost their following, and all this is a dangerous climate that can become explosive.” Addressing a United Nations summit meeting in New York on Monday, the Greek prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, called on other European Union countries to take in more refugees from Greece and emphasized the risk of giving “space to nationalistic and xenophobic forces to show their faces.”

This article really hits home for me as my father was a smoker. I am so grateful he choose to smoke outside and never around us kids. I had friends that there families would smoke in there car and inside and they and there stuff reaked. I remember coming away from there house feeling so sick from it. I think cigarette smoke has the potential to really harm children who are growing. It can harm anyone who breathes in the second hand smoke so banning it in public areas or atleast where children frequent is a very great idea. It effects everyone around you when you smoke in public we dont have a choice to breathe it in so you should not have the right to do it like public drinking.


The person is female. Racially, the person is white. The person is 27 years old. The person has a went to technical / vocational school. The person earns 25000 dollar per year. According to the Big Five personality test, on a scale of 10, the person has scored 6.0 in openness, 6.0 in conscientiousness, 6.0 in extraversion, 6.0 in agreeableness, and 6.0 in stability.

Airline worker gunned down at Oklahoma City airport, suspect found dead —  A gunman murdered a Southwest Airlines employee, then killed himself Tuesday at Oklahoma City's Will Rogers World Airport in what police described as a premeditated attack.   Michael Winchester, 52, was shot while walking between a crowded terminal and the airport employee parking area. The unidentified suspect was later found dead in a pickup truck in public parking garage overlooking the scene. Police said the suspect appeared to die of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Oklahoma City Police Capt. Paco Balderrama said the shooter apparently knew the victim's schedule and routine.   "This individual went there and waited for the employee to either be coming or going to take this opportunity," Balderrama said. He wouldn't say conclusively that it was a "sniper-type" attack. A LinkedIn page with Winchester's name described him as a ramp supervisor for Southwest and said he was from Washington, Okla., about 35 miles south of the airport.   Southwest spokeswoman Brandy King said in a statement that the airline would cancel all flights scheduled to depart Oklahoma City for the remainder of the day Tuesday.   The 1 p.m. shooting set off a scramble at the airport, with police immediately closing the sprawling complex and asking passengers inside to seek cover. They diverted incoming flights and refused to give already-loaded aircraft permission to leave. There were concerns the gunman might have entered the terminal and mingled among passengers or employees. "We have a heightened level of security all the time. These people have access to aircraft so we're very concerned about that," airport spokeswoman Karen Carney said. Hundreds of people were stranded inside the terminal for more than three hours before officers began letting them leave slowly. Carney said about 300 people were held on aircraft away from the terminal after their planes landed ahead of a ground stop. Once police determined that a suspect found in a red pickup truck on the second floor of a public parking garage was dead, officers gave an all-clear. The airport handles between 7,000 and 8,000 passengers daily for Alaska, Delta, Southwest and United airlines and has a separate terminal that serves as a transfer center for federal inmates. A jet carrying inmates to the transfer site was allowed to land while the rest of the airport was shuttered. Video from a television station helicopter showed what appeared to be a pool of blood about 100 feet from the airport's employee parking area -- and about 100 yards from the airport's ticket counters and departure area. While airports have high security, it wasn't immediately known whether surveillance cameras might show the shooting, Balderrama said. Balderrama initially said police had received reports of a possible second victim, but no one was found. Police found the suspect's truck in the garage about three hours after the shooting and determined that someone was inside. They were not sure whether he was dead or alive. After about 75 minutes, using a robot, officers determined the suspect was dead. A number of inbound flights were diverted to other airports after Will Rogers suspended operations. Southwest redirected one flight back to Dallas while a Las Vegas to Houston flight that stops in Oklahoma City went to Amarillo, Texas, instead. Two commercial flights from Chicago's O'Hare Airport were directed to Tulsa, about 100 miles away. Michael Winchester was a punter on the University of Oklahoma's 1985 national championship team. His son, James, also played for the school and currently plays for the Kansas City Chiefs. "Our hearts are truly heavy for the entire Winchester Family. Mike was a former Sooner student athlete as was his son James/daughter Carolyn," the school's athletic director, Joe Castiglione, tweeted Tuesday afternoon. He added "daughter Becca was also a student athlete. Please keep this beautiful family in your prayers" in a later tweet.

This was just so sad and senseless. The brutal styel of killing and plotting behind this murde is crazy. Its insane in this day and age a gun couldnt even make its way into the airport building. Maybe there needs to be even more measures to prevent this. I am so saddened that the victim had a family and children that have to sit with his death forever now. Airline attendants should be more protected. I wonder what the connection between the two was, was it revenge, he knew his schedule so there must have been something going on there. I think way more security now has to be implemented as this should have never even happened. Also the poor people stuck on the planes for three hours with a supposed shooter on the loose id be terrified.


This is one of those articles that just hits you in the guts. You put yourself in the victims shoes and think what would i have done could i have known. It is horrifying in this day and age someone could even make it around an airport with any kind of weapon. I would really like to learn the motive and connection the victim had with the suspect. Why do people kill others I will never understand. Also for the families that have to deal with the after math the kids who dont get a father anymore for no reason. That must have been so painful. Being stuck on an airplane while a murderer is running around the aiport would also send me in to panick.


India Kashmir: The teenager blinded by pellets —  Photographer Abid Bhat here describes the life of 14-year-old Insha Mushtaq, who lost vision in both her eyes after being hit by pellets in Indian-administered Kashmir. "I just want to ask the security personnel who fired pellets at me what my fault was," Miss Mushtaq says, as she stands by the same window she was sitting at when pellets blinded her. She has been in and out of hospitals for the past three months in an attempt to regain her vision. Nothing has worked so far, but she remains hopeful. Ms Mushtaq says she wanted to become a doctor before losing her vision. She brings out her text books to show me, and flips the pages though she cannot read them anymore. "I can only feel them now," she says tearfully. Concern in Kashmir over police pellet guns Photoshopped celebrities used for Kashmir pellet gun campaign She also shows me a school photo identity card. The continuing unrest in Indian-administered Kashmir has seen the deaths of 89 civilians with thousands injured. India blames Pakistan for stirring up violence in the region, a charge that it denies. Both countries claim Kashmir in its entirety but only control parts of it. The region has been a flashpoint for more than 60 years, sparking two wars between the countries. Within the Muslim-majority territory, some militant groups have taken up arms to fight for independence from Indian rule or a merger with Pakistan. And the widespread use of pellet guns to quell protests in recent months has led to more than a thousand people sustaining eye injuries. Pellet guns - a form of shotgun - were first used by the police as a non-lethal weapon to quell protests in Indian-administered Kashmir in 2010. They are normally used for hunting animals. The gun fires a cluster of small, round-shaped pellets, which resemble iron balls, at high velocity. A pellet gun cartridge can contain up to 500 such pellets. When the cartridge explodes, the pellets disperse in all directions. They are less lethal than bullets but can cause serious injuries, especially if they hit the eye. Doctors treating pellet gun wounds in Kashmir told the Indian Express newspaper they were seeing "sharp and more irregular-shaped pellets" which were causing "more damage" this time. Miss Mushtaq's family is struggling to come to terms with her injuries. Her mother bursts into tears as a family member helps Ms Mushtaq don a scarf and sunglasses to hide her eyes and scarred face. "If she was killed, I would have been able to overcome the grief but the sight of her blinded eyes kills me every day," her father says as he shows me pictures of her daughter in the hospital ICU. As for Miss Mushtaq herself, she is trying to stay positive. She greets every guest coming to enquire about her health with a smile, drinks her tea and tries to console her family members and relatives. Later, she goes out for a walk with some of her relatives, smile still intact. But, for her and many others like her, it is going to be a long and difficult road ahead.

You really cant help but put yourself in the victims shoes. Having dreams of becoming a doctor then one day your whole life changes and you cant do your dream anymore. It would be so scary to go blind not be able to see anything anymore you have to become dependent on on thers, you lose alot of your independence. I can understand that protests can become unsafe or even violent so you need tactics to over come that but with such numbers of people getting very hurt and permanently disabled I think thye should change there tactics. They should use more tear gas and change it to bean bag guns, a larger object that cant fit right into eyes .


Burma’s Aung San Suu Kyi under fire as alleged military abuse follows militant attack —  SITTWE, Burma — A security crackdown following militant attacks has exacerbated the humanitarian situation in a predominantly Muslim region of Burma and focused international attention on the new government of Aung San Suu Kyi. Burmese troops launched a wide-ranging manhunt last month in a troubled area of northern Rakhine state populated largely by Rohingya Muslims, leaving scorched homes and displaced residents in their wake. The manhunt followed an Oct. 9 attack on police posts that left nine policemen dead. The government has accused members of the Rohingya community of being behind the attack. Another police officer was killed in what may have been a second militant attack last week, according to state media. Renata Lok-Dessallien, the United Nations resident coordinator in Burma, was among a team of United Nations officials and diplomats who visited the affected area last week. She said authorities had assured the U.N. that aid would resume after being effectively cut off for weeks. But how soon is not clear. U.S. Ambassador Scot Marciel has called for a “thorough investigation” into alleged abuse and for the restoration of humanitarian access, the State Department said. An estimated 15 members of the security forces — roughly 10 police and five soldiers — have died and more than 30 Muslim residents have been reported killed in the security crackdown. Burma is also known as Myanmar. Human Rights Watch has reported that satellite data shows villages that have been burned, and the Reuters news agency and the Myanmar Times newspaper have chronicled the alleged rape of Muslim women by soldiers. The Myanmar Times reporter was fired following her report on the issue. “Any allegation of rape or sexual violence is a profound concern to us,” Lok-Dessallien said. Residents in Rakhine describe a landscape of fear in which members of the Rohingya community have allegedly been barred from going to mosques or work. “We can’t go anywhere, as we’re not allowed to,” Min Hlaing, a Muslim businessman in a restricted area near Maungdaw, said last week by telephone. He said food prices had risen as a result of roadblocks and claimed that at least one community leader was held by security forces. The crisis marks the first major test of Suu Kyi’s new democratically elected administration, which took over March 31 after decades of military rule. Analysts say she must find a way to work with Burma’s powerful military, which still controls the country’s security forces. Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has been accused of not doing enough to address the Rohingya crisis despite her lifelong commitment to Burmese freedom. In an interview with The Washington Post in New Delhi on Oct. 18, Suu Kyi said border security posts must be strengthened, rule of law followed and a development plan created for the area. “So many things have to be done simultaneously. It’s not an easy job,” she said. “But we are, of course, determined to contain the situation and to make sure that we restore peace and harmony as soon as possible.” Suu Kyi’s government has said the men who attacked police posts on Oct. 9 were from a little-known group with foreign backing. In YouTube videos, the group has called itself the Movement of Faith. There are about 1 million Rohingya Muslims in Burma who are essentially stateless, and many in the Buddhist-majority country consider them illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. More than 120,000 Rohingya remain confined to dirty camps in the area after violent clashes with their Buddhist neighbors in 2012. Rohingyas said they do not believe that there was a militant group operating in the state. “This is a rumor. This is not true. This is the deliberate assassination from the government,” said Mohamed Amin, 21, a Rohingya who lives in the heavily guarded Muslim neighborhood in Sittwe. More than 16,000 people from both faiths have been displaced by the search, and 100,000 are without their regular food assistance, according to Pierre Peron, of the U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Health services have been suspended, and weeks have passed without access to mobile health clinics and emergency referrals. “You have a very vulnerable population that is even more vulnerable now,” Peron said last week. The state government spokesman, Tin Maung Shwe, said the matter was “an internal affair, not an international affair.” Residents in the crowded camps said that in the days after the attacks, doctors who normally visit a few times a week did not show, although some visits have resumed. Suu Kyi blamed the health-care deficit on the security situation. “It’s even difficult for us to provide enough security to give them the health care that they need,” she said. “It is another big problem, because doctors and nurses who go to camps [for displaced people] are not treated well by the communities when they go back.” She added, “The whole thing is a rigmarole.” At a community health clinic in the Muslim neighborhood in Sittwe one day recently, there were no doctors, just a weary-looking pharmacist and several patients waiting in a dimly lit room. “We are doing as much as we can,” said Maung Htun, 54, the pharmacist. “But now we are only capable of healing small things.” Suu Kyi said that the government must create a resettlement program. A controversial citizenship-verification process that has been criticized by rights groups has been stymied because, Suu Kyi said, many Rohingya refused to participate. “We can’t fix a time frame, because it depends on how much everybody is prepared to cooperate,” she said. “We started off this movement for citizenship verification in order that we might move forward, but then, if there is no cooperation, it has been very difficult for us.” On the ground, the latest flare-up has frayed hope and diminished an already low level of confidence in Suu Kyi’s government. Maung Aye Shwe, 18, a volunteer teacher in one of the camps, said nothing has changed since Suu Kyi’s historic election a year ago. “There is no improvement within this year. We are having just oppression — no changes or improvement,” he said. Maung Kyaw Win, 42, said that he once worked as a goldsmith in his village, and that he does not know when he and his family will be able to return home. But he does know that relations with his Muslim neighbors will not be the same. “No one will trust each other until the end of the universe,” he said. Gowen reported from New Delhi. Aung Naing Soe contributed from Sittwe.

An article like this just make you so glad to live in the united states. Where everything is regulated and we have laws. I can not imagine living in a place where the governemnt and law can do anything they please without consequences. Soldiers raping women burning down houses all with out real cause. Any aid workers and doctors are treated very poorly so theres not enough to go around how does this civilzation survive. Crazy how far behind and uncivilized some places still are in 2019. I think more light needs to be shown on this as real people are hurting. Everyone deserves to feel safe in there country.


US-Backed Air Campaign Accused Of War Crimes In Yemen —  On an August morning, a taxi driver in northwestern Yemen hugged his kids and jokingly told his family, "Forgive me if I don't come back." It was his way of laughing off the danger of driving in a country where airstrikes can hit any road at any time.   In the afternoon, Mohammed al-Khal happened upon just such a strike. Three missiles had hit a highway, leaving bystanders wounded. Al-Khal took one of them, an ice cream vendor, in his car and rushed him to the nearest hospital, run by the international humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders.   But the warplanes were still hunting.   Moments after al-Khal pulled up at the hospital in the town of Abs, a missile smashed down by his car, just outside the hospital entrance. Al-Khal, a father of eight, was incinerated. The blast ripped through patients and family waiting in an outdoor reception area. Nineteen people were killed, along with two civilians killed on the highway.   The Aug. 15 attack typified what has been a pattern in the nearly 2-year-old air campaign by Saudi Arabia and its allies against Yemen's Shiite rebels, known as Houthis. Rights groups and U.N. officials say the U.S.-backed coalition has often either deliberately or recklessly depended on faulty intelligence, failed to distinguish between civilian and military targets and disregarded the likelihood of civilian casualties.   Experts say some of the strikes amount to war crimes.   "The Saudis have been committing war crimes in Yemen," said Gabor Rona, a professor teaching the laws of war at Columbia University. He warned that American personnel helping the coalition "may also be guilty of war crimes."   Nearly 4,000 civilians have been killed in the war, and an estimated 60 percent of them died in airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition, the U.N. says.   Saudi Arabia launched the coalition campaign in March 2015 in a bid to restore the internationally recognized government of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, after the Houthis overran the capital, Sanaa, and the north of the country. The Iranian-backed Houthis are allied with troops loyal to Hadi's ousted predecessor, Ali Abdullah Saleh.   The war has devastated the country of 26 million, causing widespread hunger and driving 3 million from their homes.   Warplanes have hit medical centers, schools, factories, infrastructure and roads, markets, weddings and residential compounds.   The U.S. and its allies have sold billions of dollars in weapons to Saudi Arabia for the campaign. The U.S. military provides it with intelligence, satellite imagery and logistical help.   Washington underlines it does not make targeting decisions and calls on the coalition to investigate reported violations. Over the summer, the U.S military reduced the number of military personnel advising the coalition from several dozen to fewer than five, an apparent move to distance itself from the campaign.   "U.S. security cooperation with Saudi Arabia is not a blank check," National Security Council spokesman Ned Price said.   The coalition says it does its utmost to avoid civilian casualties and notes rebels often operate among civilians. Rights groups and U.N. officials have reported probable war crimes by the Houthis, including shelling civilian areas and basing their fighters in schools and other civilian locations.     "This is the fog of war," the coalition's spokesman, Saudi Gen. Ahmed al-Asiri, told The Associated Press when asked if there is a pattern of civilian deaths. "In war, there are decisions that should be taken fast."   The coalition, which says it investigates every claim of violations, has made nine investigations public. In two it acknowledged mistakes and said it would pay compensation to victims. In most of the other cases, it said the strikes were against a justified military target.   But critics say the American and international backing has given Saudi Arabia and its allies a free rein.   "We believe that the coalition understood ... it has a green light to commit more massacres in Yemen," said Abdel-Rashed al-Faqeh, the head of Muwatana, one of Yemen's most prominent rights groups.   The strike in Abs underscored several of the problems experts point to in many strikes — the failure to distinguish between civilian and military targets and a lack of proportionality, the principle that use of force must be balanced to avoid civilian casualties.   In the strikes, warplanes initially fired a rocket targeting a Houthi checkpoint manned by two rebels on a highway outside Abs. The fighters escaped, but two more rockets were fired, killing two bystanders and wounding others. It appears the warplanes followed al-Khal's Camry, believing he was carrying a wounded fighter, and struck him outside the hospital.   The hospital was on a coalition list of sites not to be targeted in airstrikes, and had markings on its roof to show it was a medical facility.   The AP interviewed witnesses to the strikes on the highway and at the hospital, as well as al-Khal's two wives.   The head of Doctors Without Border's mission in Yemen, Colette Gadenne, said the coalition acknowledged to the group privately that the strike was a mistake.   The head of the coalition's investigation team, Mansour al-Mansour, said he could not discuss the investigation results in public. He said the coalition gave Doctors Without Borders all information it gathered.   The effect of the strike — the fifth on a facility run by the group in Yemen — has been wide-reaching. The organization pulled its personnel from northern Yemen, straining staff at multiple hospitals.   The Abs hospital served around 100,000 peoplpe, said its manager, Ibrahim Ali. Now it is shut down and the nearest medical facilities are two or three hours away by car. "Patients sometimes die on the road," Ali said.   Rona, the legal expert, said those behind the Abs strikes "didn't take sufficient precautions to determine that the people in the taxi are targetable." Then, warplanes struck where "there would be significant collateral damage to the hospital."   "Any way you look at it, it is a war crime."

This is such a disturbing article to read through. You just cant help but feel for the families of the victims so brutually killed. How could this coalition have such a lack of care for human life. The fact that they hit near a humanitarian run hospital is despicable. I am in aw that the us would in any way help when there is faulty information and so much civilian life loss. I feel for all these people that are now injured and have to go hours away for medical help because they had to shut this hospital down.


Child sex abuse victim recalls horror of being forced to sleep with father and mother —  A woman has recalled the horror of being forced to have sex with both of her parents and being plied with alcohol from the age of 11.   In a particularly heartbreaking episode of The Dr Phil Show, an incestuous child abuse survivor confronted her biological mother two decades on. Victim Amanda divulged her horrific experience, including her parents making her pose for explicit photographs and videotaping their sexual encounters with a view to sell them online.   Mother Justine – who appeared remorseful for her actions – claimed that she "hates" herself for the crimes made against her daughter. She said: "I know I made poor choices."   The daughter told her mother and the audience: "My innocence was stolen from me."   Television host Dr Phil questioned the mother: "In what parallel universe does a mother watch her daughter performing a sex act on her husband and her father?"   Justine and Amanda's biological father Jim were charged with sexual assault and exploitation of their then 13-year-old daughter in 1996. They both pleaded guilty and received sentences of 20 years in prison.   Amanda shocked the audience when she said: "My parents forced me to have sex with them," before revealing that she was given rewards for the sexual acts and that her mother showed her how to "enjoy" sex. "Justine would show me how good sex would feel by having sex in front of me with my father," she added. The young woman also claimed she was forced to have sex with both parents. She said that mother Justine both coached her sexually and was a "willing participant" in the ongoing sexual abuse.   Amanda revealed that Justine photographed and videotaped much of what she refers to as "encounters." After her parents "got what they wanted", family life would resume as normal.   Following the abuse, Amanda gave an account of what would typically happen thereafter. She said: "Afterwards, it was a normal night, dessert, brush my teeth and bedtime."   She also claimed that her parents threatened her if she revealed their dark secret to anyone in a bid for help. "It's been 20 years since that nightmare ended, but it's still hard to grasp the idea that they are out of prison," she said. According to the victim, her mother Justine had allegedly refused "to acknowledge that she had any significant part" in the molestation.   Jim, who has since reached out to his daughter on Facebook before becoming "manipulative," has yet to apologise to Amanda. She said: "I don't think I've ever received a real apology from Jim. Justine claims that her and her husband's behaviour was fuelled by money. She said: "Jim found out how much money could be made from child pornography.   "If I could take it all back I would. I hate myself for what I did," she added, along with claims that Amanda's father made her "join him" in abusing their daughter. She suggested it was all her then-husband's idea and that she had initially fought him for three months, but eventually "gave in". Contrarily, Jim has previously branded his ex-wife a liar, and stated that she was a willing participant in their heinous sex crimes against their own child. He is to appear on The Dr Phil Show today (17 November) and explain why he had sex with his daughter.   Since the episode aired, the official Twitter account for Dr Phil has posted a slew of tweets regarding child abuse and information on paedophiles.   Many viewers have expressed their horror on Amanda's story, with one person writing on the social media sharing site: "This show is a hard one... don't know how I'm going to stomach tomorrow's continuation," as another put: "SO Sad. Her parents are sick and should be ashamed of themselves".

This article is so shocking and just stomach churning to me. How could your own flesh and blood do such horrible acts to you, a little girl. They stole her innocense and trust in people. They deserve life in jail the fact that they are out is just absurd. If they could do this to there own child i think they are to be considered at risk to other children and the community. It shows they have no moral compass and consious. I feel for that girl how you could ever live a normal life or create real relationships after being used for sex for so long is beyond me. I hope she has gotten appropriate therapy and other family to help her through. What a strong girl to go against her parents and stand up for herself.


73 killed in tanker explosion in Mozambique —  A fuel tanker exploded in northern Mozambique as residents gathered around to buy fuel from the driver on Thursday, killing 73 people and injuring 110 others, Mozambican media reported.   Dozens of charred bodies were scattered around the blast site in the town of Caphiridzange in Tete province, and government officials believed more bodies might be in surrounding woods, Radio Mozambique reported. Some badly burned people had tried to run into a nearby river, the radio said.   A truck driver from neighboring Malawi had turned off the main road to sell fuel to local residents, who were gathered around the vehicle when the fuel caught fire, according to Radio Mozambique.   Medical teams rushed to the scene of the accident, evacuating the injured in ambulances and other vehicles. Searchers looked for more victims, though their efforts were hampered as night fell.   The cause of the explosion was not immediately clear. Citing Mozambican reports, the Portuguese news agency Lusa said one theory was that a fire near the tanker set off the blast, while another theory pointed to a lightning strike as residents were collecting the fuel.   A national government task force planned to travel to the accident site on Friday.

This article just hits you when thinking about the victims and there last minutes. To be in a country set up like that after being involved in such a blast and being injured i would be mentally inconsolable and frightened as you cant rely on the medical emergency people and communication to save you I think that is why many tried running into the river. These poor people experienced un imaginable pain before dying. I think the site emergency repsonders who arrived at this seen with charred bodies everyhwere must have been traumautizing and to see humans suffering in such pain. I hope that there wernt more victims that ran into the woods and just died from extreme pain. I am horrified from this story.


At least 10 hurt after massive Arizona apartment complex fire caught on video —  Ten people were hurt when a fire tore through a small apartment complex in Payson. Fire Chief David Staub says the fourplex is a total loss after an explosion ignited the blaze Saturday evening. The fire was reported after sundown and fire crews arrived to find the building completely engulfed.   Staub says eight people inside all suffered minor injuries except one person who was transported to a Maricopa County burn center. That person remains hospitalized in stable condition.   Two people who were outside the apartments also sustained minor injuries. They were treated at the scene.   It took crews about 10 minutes to get the fire under control after the gas company shut off gas in the neighborhood.   Staub says the cause remains under investigation.

I feel so sad that this freak fire has effected so many people. It has ruined the owners property which has got to be a big financial loss. It also has displaced so many people who have lived here. They have lost everyhting in the fire and i cant imagine having to rebuild or having the money to replace all my stuff and stuff thats irreplacable like pictures. I feel grateful that people were hurt and no one was killed it could have been way worse. Hopefully everyone had renters insurance to help pay for some of the damages.


Rescuers say all 33 miners trapped in China mine found dead —  BEIJING — All 33 coal miners trapped underground in a gas explosion earlier this week have been found dead, state media reported Wednesday, as work safety officials vowed to punish those responsible. Two miners survived Monday’s explosion but rescuers working around the clock found no others alive. All bodies have been recovered and rescuers were shown bowing their heads in memorial for the dead. Gas explosions inside mines are often caused when a flame or electrical spark ignites gas leaking from the coal seam. Ventilation systems are supposed to prevent gas from becoming trapped. The State Administration of Work Safety ordered an investigation into the blast, “adding that those responsible must be strictly punished.” Local officials in Chongqing also ordered smaller mines to shut down temporarily, Xinhua said. China’s mining industry has long been among the world’s deadliest. The head of the State Administration of Work Safety said earlier this year that struggling coal mines might be likely to overlook maintenance. China is the world’s largest producer and consumer of coal but plans to shutter more than 1,000 outdated mines as part of a broader plan to reduce overproduction.

I feel so bad for the victims and the victims families. They were just doing there job and this careless explosion cause them to lose there lives. It is sad that they know how deadly and unsafe these worker conditions are but still have yet to close them. I am happy they are set to close around 1,000 but i think more has to be done. There should be a council and regulations set up like osha in the us to protect workers and make sure all precautions are being done to preserve human life. Now families are left without there sons fathers and incomes when they could have easily just shut this down. I hope for safer woring conditions in the future.


Study: More toddlers and preschoolers are overdosing on opioids —  In recent years, rates of toddlers and preschoolers hospitalized for opioid overdoses more than doubled, according to a new study.   In fact, overdoses rose more than 100% over a 16-year period among all children, the study published in JAMA Pediatrics Oct. 31 showed.   Researchers from Yale School of Medicine analyzed national data from the Kids’ Inpatient Database on children admitted to U.S. hospitals for opioid poisoning. The study focused on more than 13,000 records from patients ages 1 to 19 between 1997 to 2012.   What's to blame? Possibly the increase of prescribed pain killers, including OxyContin and Vicodin. Research from 1999 to 2010 show retail sales of prescription opioids quadrupled."Even in children younger than 6 years, opioids, followed closely by benzodiazepines, now account for most of the drug poisonings in this age group; in nearly all these poisonings, the child was exposed to a prescription intended for an adult in the household," the study states.   Young children found a pill on the floor, got into their mother's purse or simply figured out how to open a bottle.   While more current data isn't yet available, study author Julie Gaither said the upward trend is likely to remain a problem among young children.   “It’s a simple message for parents that we can limit so many of these exposures to keep these medications out of these little hands," Gaither said.   She also said companies must improve packaging because young children are finding ways to get into "child-proof" bottles. Lastly, she said there needs to be more conversations about young overdoses in the pediatrics community, a topic that's largely underreported.   Prescription opioids accounted for most poisonings in the Yale study, but heroin poisonings also increased 161%. In August, more than 225 heroin overdoses occured in four counties in four states within one week. The batch of heroin was most-likely supercharged with another substance, but still drew attention to the popularity of the drug.

The whole drug topic really makes me sad as I had a mother who I saw unravel from being addicted to pain killers. I do wish they were prescriped less in our society and someone just made stronger doses of ibeuprofen. It is alarming how many people become addicted to these medicines. I thin there should be a something in place like a drug counselor to everyone who is prescribed so they can understand the signs of when it becomes addiction. The bottles should be better made now if children are being able to open them or they dont close all the way maybe a key or locking system can be made up. I have definitly seen way more about heroin overdose in my own suburbia it isnt disciminating agianst anyone it is sad it is ruining peoples lives.


This article was so disturbing to read through. I feel like theres so many different levels to these happenings and something has to be done on each to prevent little children from getting these pills in there hands. On the level of the manufactorers we need to have way better packaging like codes the kids cant get into. Doctors prescribing these should ask if they have kids and tell them preventetive measures that should be taken to reduce the risk of exposure. Parents need to have a better understanding how easy it is for kids to get into these and die. So senseless dying of something so easy to prevent.


Surprise! British Red Squirrels Carry Leprosy —  Some of them harbor strains that infected medieval Europeans, but that have been eradicated on the U.K. mainland for centuries. In 2006, Anna Meredith came across a dead red squirrel with a weird skin disorder. Its ears lacked the characteristic red tufts, and were instead swollen, smooth, and shiny, like the cauliflower ears of boxers and rugby players. Its nose, muzzle, and eyelids were similarly swollen and hairless. Meredith, a professor of conservation medicine at the University of Edinburgh, had never seen anything like this before. But she soon saw the same problems again—in six more squirrels over the next six years. She and her colleagues analyzed tissue samples from the dead animals. And to their surprise, they discovered that the squirrels had leprosy. That’s astonishing for two reasons. First, even though leprosy still affects at least 385,000 people around the world (including a few hundred in the U.S.), the disease was eradicated from Britain several centuries ago. Second, squirrels aren’t meant to get leprosy. The disease is mainly caused by a bacterium called Mycobacterium leprae, which attacks the skin and peripheral nerves. Chimps and some monkeys can occasionally catch it from people, but until now, scientists knew of only two species that naturally harbor the disease: humans, and nine-banded armadillos in the southern United States. The latter actually acquired the disease from the former; European settlers brought leprosy to the New World and then passed it onto armadillos several centuries ago. Meredith’s discovery generated enough publicity that members of the public started sending her pictures of squirrels from their own backyards, some of whom had the same lesions. Most of the shots came from Scotland, but one was from Brownsea Island—an island off the southern coast of England, and some 480 miles away from Edinburgh. “Someone had done a day trip there, seen a squirrel, and said: Is this leprosy?” says Meredith. “I looked at it and said: Wow, it’s identical!” Working with Stewart Cole, from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, Meredith analyzed the cadavers of 110 red squirrels from Great Britain and Ireland, and found that almost a third of them had leprosy, including several without any clinical signs. Those in Scotland, Ireland, and the Isle of Wight were infected with Mycobacterium lepromatosis—a second species of leprosy bacterium that was only identified in humans in 2008. By contrast, all the squirrels from Brownsea Island had M. leprae, the more traditional leprosy microbe. By comparing the microbes’ genomes, the team showed that the M. leprae strains currently infecting the Brownsea squirrels are almost identical to those recovered from a medieval human skeleton buried in the nearby city of Winchester some 730 years ago. So it’s possible that humans passed M. leprae to red squirrels several centuries ago, and that the Brownsea individuals have harbored the microbe long after its eradication on the mainland. Could the squirrels ever pass the disease back to us? Armadillos certainly do in the United States, but for the moment, there’s no evidence of squirrel-to-human transmission in Britain. “It’s not impossible, but there’s no evidence that we’re at risk,” says Meredith. “We’re more concerned about the squirrels.” Red squirrels are an endangered species in Britain. Once common, they’ve had to contend with the introduction of gray squirrels from the Americas, which outcompeted them and infected them with squirrelpox—an often fatal disease. As a result, the country is currently home to more than 2.5 million grays but just 140,000 reds, most of which live in Scotland. Those that get leprosy can live for many years with the condition, but Meredith wants to see if their health suffers in the long run. They might eventually die because they’re unable to feed properly, or because leprosy makes them more vulnerable to other infections. (Contrary to stigma, leprosy doesn’t make body parts fall off; instead, deadened peripheral nerves sometimes stop people from noticing injuries or infections in their extremities, leading to eventual amputations.)   Why did the squirrels become infected in the first place? They belong to a different order of mammals than either humans or nine-banded armadillos, and all three species are separated by around 100 million years of evolution. And yet the three of us, out of all the mammals in the world, are the only ones know to harbor M. leprae. And for that matter, why does the red squirrel get infected when the closely related grey squirrel doesn’t seem to? No one knows. Meredith’s team looked at an immune gene called TLR1. A few mutations in this gene have been linked to either a greater or lower risk of leprosy in humans, but none of these specific mutations are found in either armadillos or squirrels. Some squirrels did seem to have their own TLR1 mutations that reduced their risk of infection, but with such a small sample, it’s hard to say for sure. Perhaps the weird troika of host species simply reflects our ignorance about where leprosy hides. It may be lurking in more animals than we realize. “We need to look more closely at the possibility of a wildlife reservoir,” says Meredith. And “there is circumstantial evidence that M. leprae has an environmental reservoir,” says Helen Donoghue, from University College London. That is, the microbe might hide out in water, soil, vegetation, or something else. Perhaps that’s how the red squirrels originally became infected, she adds. The idea of an environmental reservoir has been long disputed, but perhaps needs to be revisited in light of the squirrel discovery. “Although leprosy has been known since biblical times, and still remains a major public health problem in many parts of the world, our understanding of how this infection transmits and causes disease is very limited,” says Anura Rambukkana from the University of Edinburgh. And since the infected squirrels develop symptoms that “somewhat resemble human leprosy”, he adds, they may help us to understand how the disease manifests in humans, and how it spreads between us.

This article really brings you back down to earth. It shows everything in science is not correct and there is still much for us to learn. It is scary that these animals were never known to carry this disease and now they do and I wonder if somewhere someone mutated there genes and now there are many out there spreading the disease. It is so sad these little guys much be in so much pain at the end and theres nothing they can do to alleviate it. I hope somehow they do more research to find some way to stop the spread of it before the whole species goes extinct. I feel grateful this conservationist is the one who noticed and gained more attention for the cause as other people came forward witht the same concerns.


Articles like this really scare me. You have a disease that spreads with so much mystery behind it that it is hard to contain or stop it. So many poor little creatures are at risk for this and that makes me feel so sad. They die such a painful death or have a very bad quality of life. More should be done to aid these animals and get help, more protocal if you see an animal like this to help stop it from spreading the disease.


'This isn't Pompeii, this is Aleppo' —  As 200 airstrikes hammered Aleppo last weekend, activists and aid workers posted dozens of pictures and videos online. Each of them heartbreaking, each helping to convey the horror of the besieged Syrian city. On Friday afternoon, a photo emerged of Brahim Sawas and his 10-year old son, Mahmoud, who had fallen victim to the war. They were covered in blood and dust, the pressure of the rubble holding their final postures in place. "This isn't Pompeii, this is Aleppo," one social media user wrote. A family devastated   The tragedy of this family doesn't end there. Another image shows Sawas' 8-month-old baby, Muhammad, buried under rubble in a separate room as Syrian Civil Defense workers try to recover the child's body from the dirt and dust. Um Mahmoud, Sawas' wife and the mother of the two dead boys, survived the airstrike along with her daughter. The mother and daughter were sleeping in the same room with the 8-month-old baby. Weekend of horror Sawas and the two boys were among more than 300 people killed last weekend in a new wave of violence. The deadly strike that hit the family home at 5 a.m. Friday in eastern Aleppo's rebel-held neighborhood of Qaterji was the first of a series of hundred. One activist from Aleppo described to CNN a level of bombing never seen before in a conflict that began more five years ago. In response to the surge in airstrikes, activists took to Twitter, using an Arabic hashtag that translates to #HolocaustAleppo and sharing pictures and videos from the city. Some had mistakenly described the photo of the father and son as that of a mother clutching her baby.

This is such a hard read. I cant imagine living in a war torn place where everyday you fear for your life. How sad these people died such a horrible hard death. The mother and sister have to live and rebuild there life without the kids and husband. How do you even go on after such a thing. There needs to be more aid and relief and stop all the bombing and violence. It is such a silly way to die over nothing.


13 civilians killed by cross-border shelling in Kashmir, say India, Pakistan —  India and Pakistan say 13 civilians have been killed in cross-border shelling from both sides of the Line of Control, the de facto border between the two countries in the disputed region of Kashmir.   At least seven civilians on the Indian side of the Line of Control (LoC) were killed Tuesday and 15 others injured in shelling that came from the Pakistani side, according to local Indian authorities. Pakistan's Foreign Ministry said in a statement that six civilians on the Pakistani side had been killed by shelling from India Monday, and eight injured. Could India and Pakistan go to war? Women killed 'inside their homes' The casualties on the Pakistani side were in the Nikial and Jandrot areas, the statement said, adding that Pakistan's Director General had summoned India's Deputy High Chief Commissioner on Tuesday to strongly condemn the "unprovoked ceasefire violations." Of the Indian casualties, five civilians were killed in heavy shelling in the Ramgrah sector of India's Samba district, Sheetal Nanda, Samba's district magistrate, told CNN. Nine others were injured in the area. Two women were also killed in shelling in the Manjakote area of Rajouri district, according to Johnny Williams, deputy inspector general of police in the district. "The two ladies were inside their homes when shells landed there. They died on the spot," he said, adding that three others were injured in the strikes. Three civilians were also injured in India's Poonch district, police chief J.S. Johar told CNN. Neither side has responded to the allegations of ceasefire violations. The latest clashes come at a time of heightened tension between the neighbors over Kashmir, a Muslim-majority region that has been disputed territory between India and Pakistan for the past 70 years. Both of the nuclear-armed countries hold separate parts of the region and have fought two wars, in 1947 and 1965, over their claims. They came close to a third, in 1999. Tensions have flared since 19 Indian soldiers were killed in September in an attack by armed militants on an army base in Uri, about 63 miles (102 kilometers) from Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir. In the aftermath, India launched what it described as a "surgical strike" across the Line of Control to attack what it said was a terrorist launching pad. Pakistan denied that the target was a terrorist base, pointing out that two of its soldiers were killed. Amid the continuing fallout, India has relocated more than 10,000 people from around the disputed border area, and a top Bollywood director has refused to hire Pakistani actors.

It is so sad the uprest that is happening in the middle east right now. I dont understand how cultures that rely on peace and light like india are involved in such violence. They need to have a meeting with leaders and figure things out diplomatically. I think war is just to tossed around over there when you have innocent victims and civilians being killed. They need to do things like trump be firm and have sanctions build walls but dont rely on iolence to get your way. The fact that the cease fire was broken and both sides have nuclear weapons scares me, that there is no line that they can not cross or break.


Justice For Disturbing Case Of Kitten Strangled To Death in Spokane, Washington —  Last month, a man named Wesley O’Dell and his wife, were walking around their neighborhood in Spokane, Washington and found something that changed their lives and opened their eyes to the cruelty that humanity can possess. *The real image of the kitten they found was too graphic and disturbing to display. The couple spotted a baby kitten on the side of the road completely wrapped in phone and electrical chargers and dumped like a piece of garbage on the sidewalk. When they approached the helpless kitten, they noticed that it was methodically wrapped so tightly around the kitten’s little body, from its tiny neck, to its small tail and back legs so that so that the poor things appendages were tied up next to its face. When O’Dell began to cut the cords off the the kittens small body, he felt that rigor mortis had already set in and it was hard for him to seperate the wires from its stiff figure. He also saw that the kitten’s jaw was ripped down, with a cord running through its mouth and around its neck. O’Dell was absolutely disgusted with this sight and is now determined to take action and find the culprit accountable for the horrendous crime. This act of cruelty is inhumane, disgusting and it is truly unthinkable that someone would do such a thing to a kitten who had barely even opened its eyes. The couple is now standing up and fighting for animal rights and animal welfare until justice and equality is received by all beings living on this earth. O’Dell is making a point to voice his story so that everyone is aware of the animal abuse that happened in Spokane, Washington and the lack of empathy that his local governing body has over the gruesome death of a helpless baby kitten. “Can you imagine how that would feel? What you would think, the fear in your heart, to be completely helpless at the hands of something much bigger and more poweful than you. Try to feel the pain and sadness this infant feline would have felt. Imagine what you would be thinking as the terror welled up in your swelling throat? The darkness that you would experience as you took your last breath, while someone laughed at you. Think how it would feel to be snuffed out in a cold dark street, scared and alone.” This act happened just two blocks from the couples home while their local police and animal shelters have done nothing about it. O’Dell says that this horrific situation must be remedied and he will try his hardest to ensure justice is served. Since this occurrence, O’Dell has spoken to people throughout the nation who would like to help, including the group “Gaurdians of the Rescue”. The rescue group has sent him flyers to be posted around his neighborhood as well as in local veterinarian hospitals and emergency pet clinics. He is hopeful that by distributing these flyers around town, someone will come forward with information on this crime and possibly who is at fault. O’Dell is asking for the public to repost this tragic story on social media and to talk about the kitten with friends and neighbors, not allowing for the kitten’s death to be in vein. Raising awareness of this story is one of the most important things we as animal lovers can do at this point.

This story really just hit me in the gut I did not want to even read any further. These stories disturb me for months I can't stand animal abuse. It is scary to think of the lack of remorse people like this have while doing it they are purely evil and should not be allowed to live in society. This poor kitten suffered so much before it's death. It was so deliberate to not only get rid of the animal but to hurt it also. They were right by a shelter if they did not want the animal they could have brought it there. I can't imagine the pain that animal felt as it took its last breath and that truly hurts my heart. There needs to be more actions taken against animal abusers so they dont do this to more animals.


3 U.S. military trainers killed in gunfire by security units at Jordan base —  At least three U.S. military trainers in Jordan were fatally shot by security forces Friday when their vehicle failed to stop at the gate of a military base, Jordanian and U.S. officials said.   The U.S. military service members “came under fire” as they approached a Jordanian training facility, said Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook. Few other details about the incident were given. Cook said U.S. and Jordanian authorities were investigating the cause.   Earlier, Jordan’s military said there was “an exchange of gunfire” after the vehicle’s driver ignored demands to stop outside an air base in southern Jordan. A Jordanian officer was injured, the statement said.   Other details of the incident at the King Faisal Air Base were not immediately clear. Investigators were trying to piece together the events, including whether a possible miscommunication was to blame.   The U.S. official said two of the service members died later in Jordan’s capital, Amman, where they were airlifted for treatment.   Jordan is a close ally of the United States, and military training by U.S. personnel is common. Jordan is also part of the U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State in neighboring Syria.   [Prominent Jordanian writer gunned down]   The U.S. Embassy in Amman said in a statement it was “in contact with the appropriate Jordanian authorities, who have offered their full support.”   A U.S. diplomat in Amman, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief reporters, said American and Jordanian officials “do not believe” the incident was terrorism-related, but he offered no further details.   The King Faisal base, about 150 miles southeast of Amman and near the border with Saudi Arabia, has long been used for joint exercises between Jordan and its various allies, including the United States, Britain and Saudi Arabia. The base is also part of the network in Jordan to train Western-backed Syrian rebels.   According to U.S. diplomats and Jordanian officials, there are more than 1,000 U.S. military personnel based in Jordan, the majority serving as advisers to Jordan’s armed forces and Syrian rebel factions.   Jordan’s military has been on high alert since June, when a suicide attacker driving a bomb-rigged truck barreled through Syria’s border with Jordan, setting off a blast outside a Syrian refugee camp that killed seven Jordanian troops. It was the deadliest attack along the tense border, which hundreds of thousands of Syrians have crossed during the more than five-year conflict in their homeland.   In November 2015, a Jordanian police officer opened fire at a police training academy south of Amman, killing two U.S. contractors.

I really feel for these soldiers on both side american and jordanian. It seems like it was a tough call because we are there allies and the us soldiers should have followed protocol by stopping.If it was a miscommunication I hope they take steps to make sure this doesnt happen again as fighting and killing eachother is a waste that needs to be for the bad guys. I can understand with the jordian people being on high alert with syrian suicide bombers attacking them earlier. I wonder if it was a miscommunication or somehow the soldiers flipped into that bad guys. Either way I hope a full investigaton is done to try and prevent anything of this nature from happening in the future.


The Jewish Struggle to Understand Trump's Election —  Synagogues hosted prayer and healing services on Wednesday for congregants grappling with the outcome of the U.S. presidential election. PHILADELPHIA—On November 8, 1938, Nazi paramilitary soldiers and German civilians looted and vandalized thousands of Jewish businesses and synagogues. Jews were murdered. Up to 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and taken to concentration camps. On November 8, 2016, Donald Trump was elected president of the United States. The next day, a man discovered that someone had painted swastikas on an abandoned storefront in South Philly, placing the symbols next to Trump’s name and the words “Sieg Heil,” a salute used by Nazis during World War II. Maybe it was an anti-Trump protester. Maybe it was an anti-Semite. Either way, it underscored the ways in which Trump’s election has evoked the persistent Jewish nightmare: That America will become like Germany in 1938. Jews, who have a keen eye for the repetition of history, might be forgiven for worrying about the fragility of American democracy. This is the scale of fear, grief, and anger about Trump in some Jewish communities across America. In Philadelphia, at least three synagogues held prayer services on Wednesday; congregations in a number of other cities, including Durham, North Carolina, and Washington, D.C., held similar events. “No matter who we voted for and how we are feeling this morning, we all know that we and our country are in desperate need of healing,” read the Facebook invite for an event at the Germantown Jewish Centre in north Philly. “We will sit together, sing together, pray together, and have a chance to share what is on our hearts with the support of the community.” A woman was crying when I walked into the cavernous sanctuary of GJC on Wednesday night. Roughly 100 people were gathered in a circle of chairs toward the front of the room; the cream ceiling and warmly brown furniture gave the space a living-room feel. In the center of the gathering, a single candle sat burning on a small round table. The space was still except for the occasional baby squeal or patter of toddler feet at the side of the room; people had brought their children because, as someone on Facebook observed, they need to heal, too. Trump’s daughter Ivanka came up—whether Jews would be safe because one of the president’s children is an Orthodox convert. The congregants were concerned about the racism and sexism revealed during the campaign, and discussed the stages of grief. They talked of making aliyah, or emigrating to Israel—not as a plausible possibility, but as a back-of-mind option in case things get really bad. And yes, people brought up Nazi Germany. Unlike Muslims, Mexicans, African Americans, the disabled, and women, Jews have not been directly insulted by Donald Trump during this election. Anti-Semites have arguably been empowered by his campaign: Jewish journalists have been consistently threatened and harassed on Twitter since the election got underway, often by people who self-identify as Trump supporters. But the fear seems to be less that Trump will specifically persecute Jews than the sense that America under Trump will become an increasingly hostile space for Jews and other minority groups. Trump doesn’t have to be an anti-Semite to bear responsibility for anti-Semitism. While exit polls suggest that roughly 25 percent of American Jews voted for Trump—fewer than voted for Mitt Romney in 2012, but more than voted for John McCain in 2008—the group as a whole is overwhelmingly liberal and Democratic. Adam Zeff, the rabbi at GJC, said in an interview that the synagogue’s neighborhood, Mt. Airy, is so left-wing that it’s almost “self-parody.” Most Jews live in cities or stay concentrated in “little enclaves,” as Zeff called them—he pointed out that on the map of the election results, there are tiny blue spots even deep in Trump country. “That’s where Jews live,” he said, along with other minority groups. It wasn’t Jews Trump promised to ban some 13 months ago. It was Muslims. This clustering creates a dual challenge for Jewish communities. People at GJC spoke about Trump’s election like they might about a death in the family—with a sense of real and personal loss, and a staggering alienation from their fellow Americans. “It is kind of shattering to people to feel like, wow, there’s such a difference,” said Zeff. “To think that racism, anti-immigrant sentiment, and misogyny could be given a pass by so many people makes Jews feel like anti-Semitism could also be given a pass.” And yet the congregants also spoke about the need for understanding. “The people for whom this is a happy day—we have to think about them, too,” Zeff said during the prayer service. Mt. Airy is about a half hour drive from Bucks County, a swing area in Pennsylvania where nearly half of voters went for Trump this year. But even within such a short distance, it’s difficult to imagine how the liberal Jews of Philadelphia and the Trump supporters one county up would start to know one another or be in community. The other challenge for Jews who are scared is putting that fear into context. Other groups are hurting just as much as Jews are right now, and in some cases, their fears are more tangible. It wasn’t Jews Trump promised to ban from entering the country some 13 months ago—it was Muslims. It wasn’t Jewish neighborhoods Trump described in apocalyptic terms in the presidential debates—it was black neighborhoods. At times, Jews have struggled or declined to find solidarity with both of those groups, often over the issue of Israel. “When disaster strikes, the Jewish impulse is to look inward, to say, ‘What t’shuva,’” or repentance, “do I need to do?” Zeff said. If his community looked inward and asked what kind of allies they have been to African Americans, Latinos, and other groups in Philadelphia, Zeff said, “I know what [those groups’] answer is, which is: not very good ones.” For Jews, as for other groups who feel threatened by Trump, this new era has begun with a struggle of contradictions: to understand Trump supporters while maintaining their value commitments; to experience their particular and unique pain while finding solidarity with others. When Zeff sent out a note to his synagogue about the election, “I got a response back from a congregant that said, ‘This is very nice, rabbi, but you’re asking us to do two contradictory things: You’re asking us to reach out, and you’re asking us to stand up,’” Zeff told me. He wrote back, “‘Yes, and isn’t that the lot of the Jew?’”

I feel for anyone feeling targeted or unsafe under this president in office. I find that alot of worries are just fear mongering from liberal media. I think this happens with any president I know many whites were afraid of obama being in office and only serving african americans and same here they believe trump only will help out upper white class. But this just is not the case people need to be open and see he is actually helping many diverse communities and make us be one instead of dividing and hating. Also, I think it is right that more of the illigal immigrants should be worried as he directly said he is going after them which is just since they are breaking out us laws.


Americans feel guilty about wasting too much food, but still do it —  Americans eat a lot, also throw a lot of food. That is the main point worth underlining in the new study published at Plos One, a peer-reviewed journal. Surprisingly, it is just one of the two large-scale papers about food waste.   In 2010, the study says that about one-hundred and thirty-three billion pounds of edible food both at the retail and consumer levels went uneaten. That’s about one-thousand two-hundred and forty-nine calories per person per day. Two-thirds of which were attributed to consumers, meaning people in homes that waste the food that they purchase.   In addition to the significant waste of resources, the paper says that this behavior of consumers has a substantial negative impact to the environment as about ninety-five percent of food waste enter the United States landfills.   In a press release, Ohio State University professor Brian Roe explains that the results provide the data required to develop targeted efforts to reduce waste of food each year. “If we can increase awareness of the problem, consumers are more likely to increase purposeful action to reduce food waste,” he said. “You don’t change your behavior if you don’t realize there’s a problem in the first place.”   The team of researchers has developed a national survey to identify the awareness and attitudes of Americans regarding food waste. Last year, it was administered to five-hundred people representative of the country’s population.   The study has found that about fifty-three percent of American respondents said that they’re aware that it is a problem; that’s about ten percent higher than the related research published by Johns Hopkins last year.   Doctoral student Danyi Qi, one of the authors of the research, says that they’ve found three things that people consider regarding food waste: First, about sixty-eight percent of respondents believe that throwing away edible food after the package date has passed is reducing the chance of food-linked diseases and illnesses. Meanwhile, about fifty-nine percent believe that some food waste is ‘necessary’ for freshness and flavorful certainty.   Second, seventy-seven percent said they feel a “general sense of guilt” when throwing food away. Also, about fifty-eight percent claimed to understand that throwing away of food is bad for the environment. Meanwhile, only forty-two percent said they believe wasted food is a “major source of wasted money.”   And third, which is perhaps the most interesting, is that fifty-one percent of respondents believe it would be difficult to reduce home food waste. Plus, about forty-two percent said they don’t have enough time to worry about it. For the economic perspective, fifty-three percent admit that they waste a lot of food but still buy more in bulk or in large quantities during store sales.   For the throwing-the-blame perspective, about eighty-seven percent believed that they waste less food than other similar households.   The research in full is available at the PLOS One website, and it is titled ‘Household Food Waste: Multivariate Regression and Principal Components Analyses of Awareness and Attitudes among U.S. Consumers.’

This article is very interesting to me. I think alot of consumers have a lack of education when it comes to food, food safety, labeling, and disposal. If it was more well know what expiration dates and use by dates mean im sure more people would throw less away. People need to figure out proper ways of handling food instead of thinking everything will give them a food borne illness. More compost piles should be put into place instead of throwing food into landfills. I have seen many more ads on tv for food waste and think this is a great step for awareness. I think most people are just ignorant to it because they thin its natural it wont cause any harm to the enviroment to throw it away.


Shooting Occurs Near California Polling Station —  Police have rushed to the scene in Azusa on the night of the election. The person who opened fire earlier this afternoon is dead. Police identified him as a Hispanic male. Police found the suspect dead when they entered the home he had barricaded himself in. It is unclear if he killed himself or whether he died from police fire. The suspect had an assault-style rifle. Police are now searching the area to make sure there are no other suspects and there are no victims. Officials also confirmed the shooting was not related to the election. Previous reports the suspect was a woman were false, police say. Shooting Victim Identified The one fatality from the shooting Tuesday afternoon was a man in his 70s, police say. He was killed after an assailant with an assault-style weapon opened fire. The shooter is still surrounded by police, barricaded in a nearby home.

I know it is odd but I always feel a sense of compassion for these shooters. Yes they are evil and need to be punished but thinking of what lead them to try and kill innocent people they must have had something horrible in there life happen or been in a very toxic enviroment. There should be more talks of mental health and treatment for people instead of banning guns. There should be training for people who sell guns to ask questions or maybe just assess mental health a bit before people can buy the guns. This was also odd because he was older 70 years old,and hispanic I wonder if the tension and state of the US made him angered and want to carry out this act.


Wife Who Died Alongside Husband, Children in Murder-Suicide Alleged Abuse, Had Plans to Leave —  Megan Short, who died alongside her husband, Mark, and the couple's three children in an apparent murder-suicide over the weekend, had been planning to leave her husband, according to Mark Short's relatives. Mark Short's cousin and aunt told NBC10/Telemundo62 reporter Andrea Cruz that Megan and Mark Short had been going through a tough separation recently, and that Mark had been trying to keep the family together. "He was a family, family guy. He was all family. He worked himself to death to try and keep his family together," James Short, Mark Short's cousin, said. "It was just work, work, work and family. That was it." Megan Short, though, alleged on Facebook that her husband was abusive, a friend told the Reading Eagle. She posted about her desire to leave the marriage on her Facebook profile, the friend said. Mark Short's relatives, who live in Folcroft, Delaware County, where he grew up, said that he took his wife and their children, 2-year-old Willow, 5-year-old Mark Jr. and 8-year-old Liana, to Disney World in February in hopes of improving his relationship with his wife and convincing her to stay together. That didn't help, though, the relatives said, and Megan Short still planned to leave. Police have said their investigation revealed the couple had "domestic issues," but they have not provided additional details. On Saturday, police found 40-year-old Mark and Megan Short, 33, along with their three children and the family's dog, all dead of gunshot wounds in the living room of their home in the Berks County Borough of Sinking Spring. Officers paid a visit to the stately single home where the family lived on Winding Brook Drive when one of Megan Short's relatives called them, concerned after she failed to show up for a planned lunch, authorities said. Police have not yet said who they believe did the shooting, but said investigators did find a "murder-suicide note" in the home, along with a handgun near one of the adults' bodies. Authorities called the family's deaths "an apparent tragic domestic incident." Mark Short's relatives described him as a laid-back man who worked in the real-estate industry and would do anything for anyone, particularly his family. "He was just a really good guy. You wouldn't think he would do this kind of thing, but in the situation he's in right now, you never can tell with people," James Short said of his cousin. "Don't think any less of him, because he's a really, really good guy. He would do anything for anybody," James Short continued. "You don't know the situation, so don't try to judge." James Short and other relatives said that Megan Short began dating Mark, who was seven years her senior, when she was just 17 years old, and that the couple had a child and married not long after that.  The family struggled with serious health issues in their youngest child, Willow, who was born with a congenital heart defect that required her to have a heart transplant when she was just days old. Articles in both the New York Times and the Reading Eagle chronicled the Shorts' struggles with Willow's health problems. Megan Short also recently wrote about the post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety she suffers due to dealing with her young daughter's illness in a blog post on the Philly at Heart blog. "There are very few moments when you can clearly see your life as separated into the before and after," Megan Short wrote. "Having a child born with a severe congenital heart defect has been the most significant shift of my life." She wrote that she began taking medication and going to therapy for her PTSD in the blog post, which was published in April. Despite the family's struggles, their Facebook pages seem to tell a different part of the story. Mark and Megan Short's profiles both show dozens of photos of them together and with their blond-haired children, smiling. On a photo of Mark Short and Megan posted on his page in December, he wrote, "She's still the most beautiful girl I've ever met ... I'm the luckiest guy in the world to have her as my wife and the mother of my three amazing children." Mark Short's relatives said they expected his body to be released Monday afternoon following an autopsy, and that they plan to have his funeral in Delaware County. They said Megan Short's family is handling arrangements for her and the children.

This article just really hits you in the gut. How horrible is it that many families look perfect online but struggle in silence behidn closed doors. It seems the mom was going through alot of mental health issues and health issues with the baby that it took a tole on the relationship and maybe he was trying to hold onto something that was over with. She was married at such a young age i can see that being a reason to want something new we all grow. He seemed like if he couldnt have them he didnt want anyone else to. I feel so bad for the children who has nothing to do with this lost there lives so young. The police must have been traumatized by the scene they walked into.


Anything like what is in this article is so horrifying to me. How could a parent take the life of there child. How could a husband take the life of there wife. I can undertand people who commit sucide but to kill the whole family even the dog that is just evil. I think more help and mental reach out should be offered in communities to men. They bottle things up and this is what happens. Men are not allowed to show emotions and then they let it out in violence. I wish this woman had been able to escape sooner her and her children would still be around.