British 13-year-old given life for rape of teacher

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The Crown Court heard that the boy had attacked the female teacher after a one-to-one session, and then drove the teacher’s car away from the scene before abandoning it thirty miles away.

The boy, who also suffers from learning difficulties, admitted to the rape in court.

The defence told the court how the boy had been the victim of sexual abuse since he was very young. At just three and a half, concerns had been raised over his ‘sexualised’ behaviour. By four, he had been encouraged to experiment with alcohol and cigarettes.

But judge Mr Justice Grigson told the boy: “Despite your very young age, it is quite clear that you knew what you were doing.”

The judge told the boy that he must serve at least 21 months of his sentence but will most likely be behind bars for much longer. He will also be on Britain’s Sex Offender Register for all of his life.

The agencies which should have protected the boy in his early life have launched an enquiry into their … Read More

Jamaica: Violence kills at least 30

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Authorities in Jamaica say that gunfights in the capital Kingston have left at least 30 people dead, as hundreds of troops and police search for an alleged drug kingpin wanted by the US. At least 25 people were injured as well.

The violence has been triggered by the Jamaican government’s efforts to extradite Christopher “Dudus” Coke, the alleged leader of the “Shower Posse” group. Armed security forces stormed the Tivoli Gardens slum of western Kingston on Monday in an effort to locate Coke, who has not been found. Last week, Coke’s supporters barricaded the area in an attempt to thwart his arrest.

The trouble has forced the closure of schools and businesses across the capital, and the government has appealed for blood donations for the wounded. A state of emergency is in effect for parts of Kingston.

The US has issued a travel alert to warn citizens against visiting the island nation. Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding has promised “strong and decisive” action to rest … Read More

New ‘clean water’ funding for Djibouti’s drought-stricken rural areas

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With the announcement Monday of €2 million in new funding from the European Union (EU), the Republic of Djibouti’s Ministry of Agriculture hopes to provide some relief to an estimated 25,000 rural inhabitants suffering through severe drought conditions. The money, to be channeled through UNICEF for its water and sanitation program, will be used to develop new wells and improve existing ones.

UNICEF is to contribute a further €60,000, as well as technical expertise to the Ministry of Agriculture, who will carry out the bulk of the work.

“The two-year water supply project targeting rural districts is very significant since people living in 45 villages and their 40,000 heads of cattle will have access to clean drinking water,” said Joaquin Gonzalez, EU Representative in Djibouti.

At the same time, the UN aid agency World Food Program (WFP) indicated that it is working with the Ministry of Agriculture and UNICEF to gradually shift Djibouti’s reliance on emergency aid to a Food for Work program, which it hopes will assist nomadic herders in Djibouti with long-term sustainability. “What we are trying to do together with the Ministry of Agriculture and UNICEF is, for example to dig wells so that despite drought, these herders will be able to irrigate their fields,” said Simon Pluess, WFP spokesman. “And, together with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, we will try and promote vegetable gardens.”

Nomads in Djibouti, Africa.
Image: The humanitarian news and analysis service, IRIN.

Djibouti has survived harsh drought conditions for the past 5 years. Groundwater is the primary source of water for drinking and irrigation, but has been difficult to exploit and is often contaminated. Almost 50 percent of people in rural Djibouti do not have ready access to properly developed source of drinking water. And, due to the ongoing drought, water availability for livestock is limited. Livestock have shown signs of distress and, subsequently, milk production is down substantially.

Nearly half of all families in Djibouti’s northwest were forced to migrate to find pasture for their livestock. As the droughts continue, the importance of properly maintained wells has become apparent. “Life is harder and harder for us. Years ago there were more rains and also more pastureland for cattle. Now it is good for us to have functioning wells so that we can keep cattle here,” said Anou Amada, farmer in the village of Andoli.

A 2006 survey indicated that only 15 percent of wells in Djibouti were equipped with a protective concrete wall to prevent contamination. Andoli’s well is one of many undergoing repair through WFP’s Food for Work project.

“WFP couldn’t do this alone, so we work with the Ministry of Agriculture and UNICEF to dig wells and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization for vegetable gardens,” said Benoit Thiry, Director, WFP in Djibouti.

When the project is completed in 2008, it will have increased Djibouti’s water pump capacity by adding 25 solar-power pumps, which would compliment the current 61 diesel-powered pumps. “The advantage of solar…is that it is much cheaper and requires less maintenance,” said Omar Habib, UNICEF communication specialist. “We want the people to participate and to appropriate these pumping stations. The government’s role in the long term should be as restricted as possible,” … Read More

Jerry Brown defeats Meg Whitman in election for California governorship

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On Tuesday night, twenty-seven years after previously completing his second term as governor of California, candidate Jerry Brown has again won the race for the position.

Attorney General Jerry Brown, of San Francisco, California, was the lead nominee for the Democratic Party, facing off against the lead nominee of the Republican Party Meg Whitman, of Long Island, New York, who had spent a record US$141 million to support her campaign. More than approximately $80 million of that was diverted to knocking out California Insurance Commissioner and also Republican candidate Steve Poizner, of Houston, Texas, who was also running in the election but was defeated early in the campaign.

The election ended with only 42.2% popular support for Meg Whitman as contrasted with 52.8% of votes for Jerry Brown. A major issue that arose during the elections was the bad economy, something that many people cited as the reason for their votes. Some mudslinging, including an incident when an unidentified Brown supporter was found to have called Whitman a “whore”, also ensued a few days before the night of the election took place in the Fox theater, according to Cnet.

When the night of the election came and the new governor of California announced, the former Jesuit seminary student gave his five-minute victory speech, showing optimism for the future of California and the state budget:

“I see California once again leading in renewable energy, in public education and openness to every kind of person, whatever their color is,” Brown said. “I mean, we’re all God’s … Read More

German Cardinal Ratzinger elected Pope Benedict XVI

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White smoke appeared today at 5.50 p.m. local time over the Sistine Chapel in Rome – the first sign that a new Pope had been elected by the Conclave of Cardinals. A few minutes later, the bells of St. Peter’s Basilica began ringing, confirming the election. Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger had been selected as the successor to Pope John Paul II as the 265th Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, and will be known as Pope Benedict XVI.

The conclave of 115 cardinals started the process of electing a new Pope on Monday, April 18. However, it has taken two days for the required two thirds majority to be reached.

The new Pope appeared to the public within an hour of the first announcement. He appeared on the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica and delivered a short address to the crowd in Italian. Tens of thousands of people were in St Peter’s Square to observe the results of the election.

The election of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger follows the death of Pope John Paul II o … Read More

Rare woodpecker discovered in Arkansas

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Wildlife scientists confirmed on Thursday that a bird long thought extinct, the Ivory-billed woodpecker, has been found in Arkansas. The remarkable birds have a 30-inch wingspan and stand nearly 20 inches high.

The birds inhabited a wide swath of American bottomlands and mountain pine forests until the latter part of the 1800s. They require a large feeding ground, and it is thought the expansion of towns and cities closed off their domain. They went extinct in Cuba during the same period. Ornithologists say each mating pair of Ivory-billed woodpeckers needs three square miles of forest to survive. There were thought to be only 22 of them left in 1938.

There have been several independent sightings of the bird in Arkansas over the last year, and even a videotape. In an effort to support the birds, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, The Nature Conservancy, and other groups have joined to form the Big Woods Conservation Partnership to conserve 200,000 acres of forest habitat and rivers in the area during the next 10 years.

John Fitzpatrick, director of the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology told the Associated Press, “the bird captured on video is clearly an ivory-billed woodpecker. Amazingly, America may have another chance to protect the future of this spectacular bird and the awesome forests in which it lives.”

The story premiered Thursday in the online version of Science … Read More

Researchers discover giant asteroid impact crater in Antarctica

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Researchers have found a giant asteroid impact crater under the Wilkes Land ice sheet of Antarctica and it may have been responsible for creating the conditions in which dinosaurs evolved, but may also have been the cause of a mass extinction.

“This Wilkes Land impact is much bigger than the impact that killed the dinosaurs, and probably would have caused catastrophic damage at the time,” said Ohio State University Professor of geological sciences, Ralph von Fres.

“All the environmental changes that would have resulted from the impact would have created a highly caustic environment that was really hard to endure. So it makes sense that a lot of life went extinct at that time,” added von Fres.

The crater is over 300 miles wide and was made about 250 million years ago by an asteroid nearly 30 miles wide. Researchers say that it may have caused an Earth-wide Extinction Level Event (ELE), but also may have created the conditions under which dinosaurs evolved. The species that benefited include the archosaurs, the immediate ancestors of the dinosaurs.

It is thought that nearly 96% of Earth’s ocean life and at least 70% of animals on land were made extinct. The impact itself may also have caused the supercontinent Gondwana to break, ultimately forming … Read More

Firefox 1.0 Internet Browser released by Mozilla Foundation

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Mozilla Firefox 1.0, a free open-source web browser, has been released on November 9, 2004 by the Mozilla Foundation.

Some major characteristics of the browser are: pop-up blocking, tabbed browsing, integrated RSS news reader, themes, online fraud protection, extendable with add-ons and multi-platform (it works on Windows, Linux and Mac OS X). As of November 16, 2004, there are Firefox versions in the following languages: Norwegian, Polish, Finnish, Italian, Japanese, Greek, Korean, Spanish, Russian, Slovenian, Czech, English, Romanian, German, Hebrew, French, Hungarian, Swedish and Catalan. Other languages should appear later.

Firefox has grown rapidly in popularity, with a Preview Release of the 1.0 version surpassing 10 million downloads in days. The browser has received critical acclaim by some magazines and is seen by many as a real competitor to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, which currently holds over 90% market share. Here’s what some reviewers have said about Firefox:

• “Move over, Internet Explorer. Feature-studded and secure, Mozilla Firefox 1.0 is a safer, better choice for Internet browsing.” CNet

• “All told, Firefox is clean and fast. If you want a browser that respects your PC intelligence and helps you get things done, Firefox is a good place to start.” PC Magazine

• “Despite its small flaws, Firefox is an excellent browser that is within a [sic] two years of unseating Microsoft IE from its throne.” PCWorld

The software’s website can be found at GetFi … Read More

JP Morgan apologizes for slavery

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JP Morgan Chase issued an apology on Thursday for the actions of two of its predecessor banks that accepted slaves as collateral on loans.

Citizens Bank and Canal Bank in Louisiana, which were ultimately acquired by JP Morgan, accepted approximately 13,000 slaves as collateral and took ownership of approximately 1250 between 1831 and 1865, according to a memo to employees from CEO and Chairman William Harrison and President James Dimon.

The memo was in response to a Chicago ordinance, which requires disclosure of slave ownership.

“We apologize to the American public, and particularly to African-Americans, for the role that Citizens Bank and Canal Bank played during that period,” said the company on its website. “Although we cannot change the past, we are committed to learning from and emerging stronger because of it.” [1]

JP Morgan was involved in a class action suit in 2002 which sought reparations for slavery from it and 17 other companies. The case was dismissed last year.

The bank will establish a $5 million, need-based scholarship for African-American students in Louisiana.

JP Morgan stock fell 1.6 percent on Thursday … Read More

Dalai Lama visits monastery despite protests from China

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The Dalai Lama visited a Tibetan monastery on Sunday in Tawang in the northeast Himalayan region of Arunachal Pradesh in India, which is disputed by China and India. This is his second controversial visit this year, following a previous visit to Taiwan in August, also claimed by China.

The Chinese government has protested at the visit, accusing the Dalai Lama of trying to undermine their rule in Tibet and accusing the visit of anti-China sentiments. The Dalai Lama refutes these claims, calling the visit “non-political”.

Thousands of Buddhists welcomed the spiritual leader, who fled Tibet to live in exile in India in 1959, upon his arrival at the monastery. “We are very pleased and blessed to have His Holiness here,” said Sarwang Lama, one of the monks. Tibetan prayer flags and posters of the Nobel peace prize winner decorated the route and monks played cymbals and horns.

The region of Arunachal Pradesh is of symbolic importance to the spiritual leader; it was through here that he fled to exile fifty years ago. “There are a lot of emotions involved,” he said. “When I escaped from China in 1959, I was mentally and physically very weak […] The Chinese did not pursue us in 1959, but when I reached India they started speaking against me.”

Although this the first time the Dalai Lama has visited Tawang, it comes amidst mounting tensions between India and China over the disputed border. In the past months both countries have moved troops and there have been minor incidents, although nothing similar to the intense war which took place briefly in 1962.

The Dalai Lama remains stoic about Chinese reactions. “It is quite usual for China to step up campaigning against me wherever I go,” he said. “It is totally baseless on the part of the Chinese communist government to say that I am encouraging a separatist movement […] My visit to Tawang is non-political and aimed at promoting universal brotherhood and noth … Read More