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Huffington Post – A central figure behind the Center for Disease Control’s (CDC) claims disputing the link between vaccines and autism and other neurological disorders has disappeared after officials discovered massive fraud involving the theft of millions in taxpayer dollars. Danish police are investigating Dr. Poul Thorsen, who has vanished along with almost $2 million that he had supposedly spent on research. Read article
AP — Australian archaeologists have uncovered what they believe to be the world’s southernmost site of early human life, a 40,000-year-old tribal meeting ground, an Aboriginal leader said Wednesday. The site appears to have been the last place of refuge for Aboriginal tribes from the cannon fire of Australia’s first white settlers, said Michael Mansell of the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre. Read article
IPS – With the 15th-year review of the 1995 Beijing World Conference on Women taking place at the ongoing Commission on the Status of Women in New York, South African teachers and education experts say they fear that a special focus on the advancement of girls is getting lost amidst the growing levels of poverty in the country. Read Article
ABC – In the wake of the latest sex abuse claims in the Catholic Church in Germany, a number of senior clergy have called for a debate on the issue of celibacy in the priesthood. The Archbishop of Vienna called for a thorough examination of the link between celibacy and child sex abuse by priests and the Archbishop of Salzburg asked whether it was an appropriate way of life for priests today. Read Article
ABC – A former Scientologist who says she was a “child slave” and alleges she saw a six-year-old boy chained up in a ship’s hold is disappointed the Senate has blocked a full inquiry into the religious organisation. Independent Senator Nick Xenophon has been calling for a full inquiry into the church since revealing claims of forced abortions and other abuses in Parliament last year. Read Article
BBC – Chile’s new President, Sebastian Pinera, has said it will cost at least $30bn (£20bn) to rebuild the country after January’s earthquake. Speaking on his first full day in office, he said loans and budgetary savings would be used to rebuild infrastructure, homes and industry. Other nations would be asked to help, Mr Pinera told reporters in Santiago. Read article
The Guardian – Neighbours were oblivious that recluse who froze to death in her home was first black woman on South Carolina legislature. The neighbours knew Juanita Goggins only as an elderly recluse with no friends and a family that was rarely seen. Goggins was so private that she instructed a neighbour who delivered groceries to leave them at the door, ring the bell and go away before she emerged. Read Article
Deutsche Welle – As more and more allegations of sexual abuse in Catholic institutions come to light, German politicians debate whether to extend the statute of limitations for civil and criminal prosecution. A rash of reported cases of sexual abuse and molestation in schools and other institutions run by the Catholic Church in Germany has led to a discussion about whether the country’s time limit on civil and criminal prosecution of abuse cases should be raised. Read Article
Daily Mail – Britain is the worst country in which to raise children, while Australia is the best, a study has found. A massive 78 per cent of children who moved there from countries such as the UK spent more time outdoors than they did before, and the majority ate more healthily. Read Article
Times Online – The Italian Parliament has approved a law that will shield Silvio Berlusconi, the Prime Minister, from criminal trials for the next year and a half. The decision led to vociferous protests from magistrates, judges and the centre-Left opposition. The law, passed last night, in effect undermines two trials in which Mr Berlusconi, 73, is accused of corruption. In one he is charged with giving David Mills, his former British tax lawyer and estranged husband of Tessa Jowell, the Olympics Minister, a bribe to lie for him in court in corruption cases in the 1990s. In the second his television company Mediaset is accused of tax fraud over the purchase of Hollywood film rights. Read article
Daily Mail – Assisted suicide for anyone over 70 who has simply had enough of life is being considered in Holland. Non-doctors would be trained to administer a lethal potion to elderly people who ‘consider their lives complete’. Read Article
The Times – The Roman Catholic Church in Germany ordered two separate investigations yesterday into allegations of widespread sexual abuse in its institutions, specifically at the Bavarian boarding school where the Pope’s brother served as choirmaster.With nearly two thirds of dioceses caught up in the widening scandal, the German Bishops’ Conference said that it would examine all 170 allegations made so far. A spokesman said that the investigation would take a close look at the Regensburger Domspatzen boys’ choir, led by Georg Ratzinger for 30 years until 1994. Read Article
Post-Gazette – Women of all races bring home less income and own fewer assets, on average, than men of the same race, but for single black women the disparities are so overwhelmingly great that even in their prime working years their median wealth amounts to only $5. In a groundbreaking report released Monday by a leading economic research group, social scientists turned a spotlight on the grave financial challenges facing an often overlooked group of women, many of whom could not take an unpaid sick day or repair a major appliance without going into debt. Read article
Ed. – Please note the use of the term ‘net worth’. This implies that wealth and worth are the same. The author of the article and his audience may well not agree with this implication. However, words/language are very powerful and can be a subtle/subliminal way of continuing old attitudes or starting new attitudes, particularly with up-and-coming generations.
The Australian -THE chairman of the ABC, Maurice Newman, has told about 250 leading journalists, program-makers and managers at the ABC that the media had displayed “group-think” on the issue of climate change in a speech that led to a feisty exchange with senior journalists- Read Article
Yahoo – All-night gaming binges are harmless in moderation, but this week one married Korean couple discovered the awful consequences of letting virtual life overtake real responsibilities. Read Article
The Times – Hundreds of Tibetans have been rounded up in Lhasa and armed paramilitaries are patrolling the streets in the run-up to the anniversary of a bloody riot in 2008. The authorities are anxious to avoid a repeat of the anti-Chinese attacks that left about 20 people dead when Tibetans rampaged through the streets of the Himalayan city setting fire to shops, offices and banks. Read Articles
The Times – Germany has blamed a “wall of silence” created by the Vatican for hampering investigations into decades of abuse of schoolchildren by Catholic clergy. Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, the Justice Minister, said that Vatican secrecy rules, including a 2001 directive requiring even the most serious cases to be investigated first by Church officials, were complicating efforts to shed light on claims of abuse at some of Germany’s most highly regarded schools. Read Article
BBC – Former priest Bill Carney was named as one of the worst cases in Dublin’s Catholic diocese in the Murphy report into clerical abuse there. However, for the last 10 years he has been free to live quietly in Britain. Newsnight’s Olenka Frenkiel has investigated his case and tracked him down in the Canary Islands. Read Article
Washington Post – Children who throw too many tantrums could be diagnosed with “temper dysregulation with dysphoria.” Teenagers who are particularly eccentric might be candidates for treatment for “psychosis risk syndrome.” Men who are just way too interested in sex face being labeled as suffering from “hypersexual disorder.” These are among dozens of proposals being unveiled Wednesday by the American Psychiatric Association in the first complete revision since 1994 of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or “DSM” — the massive tome that has served as the bible for modern psychiatry for more than half a century. Read Article
Ed. – This flies in the face of commonsense, which desperately needs a ‘comeback’. Language is being manipulated here, labels create distance between people when they are used. “It influences [how] research. . . . It affects legal matters, industry and government programs.” In short – affects people’s perspectives and behaviours. “The process” hasn’t really EVER been shielded from pharmacuetical interests, it’s just more blatant now. “in maintaining the old diagnostic criteria”? – It seems to be introducing a whole lot of unnecessary new Criteria.
Daily Telegraph – One third of people who were caught up in the 7/7 London bombings suffered post-traumatic stress disorder, researchers have said. However, only four per cent of them were referred by their GP for specialist treatment, it has been found. A study, published in the journal Psychological Medicine, conducted in the aftermath of the 2005 bombings traced survivors of the attacks, which killed 52 and injured 700. Read Article
BBC – An American medical charity has warned that thousands of Burmese refugees in Bangladesh are facing starvation. Physicians for Human Rights said government authorities are preventing the Rohingya, a Muslim minority, from receiving adequate care. Read Article
Yahoo! (AFP) – Asia is “missing” about 96 million women — the vast majority in China and India — who died from discriminatory health care and neglect or who were never born at all, the UN estimated on Monday. Female infanticide and sex-selective abortion have caused a severe gender imbalance in Asia, and the problem is worsening despite rapid economic growth in the region, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) report said. Read Article
Daily Telegraph – Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York City, is planning to tackle the American fondness for sugary soft drinks with a so -called ’soda tax’. Mr Bloomberg, whose administration has already targeted unhealthy trans fats in food and banned smoking from many public areas, has urged New York state legislators to impose a tax of a cent per ounce on the sugary drinks. Read article
SOCIAL WORKERS have placed the five-year-old daughter of a professional couple on the child protection register for “emotional abuse” after the mother told the girl she was delivered by caesarean. Other allegations against the mother include cuddling her daughter for too long when dropping her off at nursery. The intervention by Birmingham social services prompted the mother, Shahnaz Malik, to go into hiding with her daughter, Amaani, for two months, fearing the girl would be taken away. Read Article
Ed. – Is this the sort of world we want for ourselves or our children? This is why it is important to stand up against this sort of ‘big brother’ attitude by various levels of Government. And Internet filters/secret blacklists (not on E-mail) – however well-intentioned.
BBC – Human rights organisations in Cambodia have called for the government to tackle the rising incidence of rape. A report by Amnesty International says victims have limited access to justice, medical services and counselling. It claims that rape cases are often settled by cash payments to the victim – or bribes to the authorities. Read article
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