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South Korea Marines Commander Vows 'Thousand-Fold' Retaliation For Attack By North
Amplify’d from www.hapblog.com
South Korea Marines Commander Vows 'Thousand-Fold' Retaliation For Attack By North
The threat came as efforts to halt violence in the region continued even as South Korea and the U.S. prepared to launch joint military maneuvers Sunday.
At a funeral in Seongnam, near Seoul, dignitaries and relatives placed white chrysanthemums at an alter for the two marines killed in Tuesday's attack on the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong. The attack was one of the worst bombardments of South Korea's territory since the 1950-53 Korean War.
The attack also killed two civilians.
About 600 mourners including Prime Minister Kim Hwang-sik and the marine commander Maj. Gen. You Nak-jun attended the funeral for the two marines at a packed gymnasium in a military hospital as somber music sounded.
"Our marine corps ... will carry out a hundred- or thousand-fold," retaliation against North Korea for launching Tuesday's attack, You said, without elaborating
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FedEx Finds Radioactive Shipment That Vanished Between N.D. and Tenn.
Amplify’d from www.foxnews.com
FedEx Finds Radioactive Shipment That Vanished Between N.D. and Tenn.
June 3, 2010: Dr. Steven Birnbaum works a CT scanner with a patient at Southern New Hampshire Medical Center in Nashua, N.H.
MEMPHIS, Tenn. – FedEx says it has located a shipment of radioactive rods used in medical equipment that had vanished while being sent from North Dakota to Tennessee.
The rods, which are used for quality control in CT scans, were found at the FedEx station in Knoxville, Tenn., FedEx spokeswoman Sandra Munoz told FoxNews.com Friday.
A hospital in Fargo, N.D. returned three shipments of the rods to their manufacturer in Knoxville, Tenn., earlier in the week, but only two arrived at their destination.
The rods were incased in a metal container called a "pig" that contains their radiation. Munoz said when they were recovered at the Knoxville station Friday no one had opened that casing.
"Everything's fine, the pig itself was not opened, and we're making arrangements to deliver it to the recipient," Munoz said.
Fox News Medical Contributor Dr. Marc Siegel says FedEx is lucky no one opened the container.
"I don't believe it has the degree of radiation that, if it were opened, your skin would suddenly slop off. But the concern would be, if this got opened inadvertently and someone didn't know what it was and then was repeatedly exposed to it over several days, it could cause a problem with radiation poisoning," Siegel said. "The people that use this equipment in a hospital use protective shielding with it."
The lesson here, he says, is that active medical material must always be transported in a way that ensures that the general public cannot get access to it.
"Medical devices should not be FedEx'ed. They should be sent under a special service," Siegel said. "There are courier services and several other ways to do that without getting into the general pool. I think that was a mistake that's not generally the way medical supplies are sent.
"If FedEx wants to be involved in transporting medical materials, it should be completely separate and with all kinds of checks and balances so this can't happen," he added.
Munoz says FedEx follows a series of regulations when transporting objects like these rods, and this shipment was no exception.
"There are regulations on how this type of equipment has to be packaged, the quantities that can be shipped, and we were all within the regulatory requirements," she said.
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Oregon Resident Arrested in Plot to Bomb Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony in Portland
Amplify’d from portland.fbi.gov
According to a criminal complaint signed in the District of Oregon, Mohamud was arrested by the FBI and Portland Police Bureau at approximately 5:40 p.m. (PST) Nov. 26, 2010 after he attempted to detonate what he believed to be an explosives-laden van that was parked near the tree lighting ceremony in Portland’s Pioneer Courthouse Square. The arrest was the culmination of a long-term undercover operation, during which Mohamud had been monitored closely for months as his alleged bomb plot developed. The device was in fact inert; and the public was never in danger from the device.
Mohamud is expected to make his initial appearance in federal court in Portland on Monday. He faces a maximum statutory sentence of life in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted of the charge of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction.
Dwight C. Holton, U.S. Attorney for the District of Oregon, said, “This defendant’s chilling determination is a stark reminder that there are people—even here in Oregon—who are determined to kill Americans. The good work of law enforcement protected Oregonians in this case—and we have no reason to believe there is any continuing threat arising from this case.”
“The complaint alleges that Mohamud attempted to detonate what he believed to be a vehicle bomb at a crowded holiday event in downtown Portland, but a coordinated undercover law enforcement action was able to thwart his efforts and ensure no one was harmed,” said David Kris, Assistant Attorney General for National Security. “While the public was never in danger from the device, this case serves as yet another reminder of the need for continued vigilance both at home and abroad.”
“The threat was very real. Our investigation shows that Mohamud was absolutely committed to carrying out an attack on a very grand scale,” said Arthur Balizan, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI in Oregon. “At the same time, I want to reassure the people of this community that, at every turn, we denied him the ability to actually carry out the attack.”
According to the affidavit filed in support of the criminal complaint, in August 2009, Mohamud was in e-mail contact with an unindicted associate (UA1) overseas who is believed to be involved in terrorist activities. In December 2009, while UA1 was located in the northwest frontier province of Pakistan, Mohamud and UA1 discussed the possibility of Mohamud traveling to Pakistan to engage in violent jihad. UAI allegedly referred Mohamud to a second unindicted associate (UA2) overseas and provided Mohamud with a name and email address to facilitate the process.
In the months that followed, Mohamud allegedly made several unsuccessful attempts to contact UA2. Ultimately, an FBI undercover operative contacted Mohamud via e-mail in June 2010 under the guise of being an associate of UA1. Mohamud and the FBI undercover operative then agreed to meet in Portland in July 2010. At this meeting, Mohamud allegedly told the FBI undercover operative that he had written articles that were published in Jihad Recollections, an online magazine that advocated violent jihad. Mohamud also indicated that he wanted to become “operational.” Asked what he meant by “operational,” Mohamud stated that he wanted to put an “explosion” together, but needed help.
At a second meeting in August 2010, Mohamud allegedly told undercover FBI operatives he had been thinking of committing violent jihad since the age of 15. According to the affidavit, Mohamud then told the undercover FBI operatives that he had identified a potential target for a bomb: the annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Portland’s Pioneer Courthouse Square on Nov. 26, 2010.
According to the affidavit, the undercover FBI operatives cautioned Mohamud several times about the seriousness of this plan, noting there would be many people at the event, including many children, and emphasized that Mohamud could abandon his attack plans at any time with no shame. “You know there’s gonna be a lot of children there?” an undercover FBI operative asked Mohamud. According to the affidavit, Mohamud responded that he was looking for a “huge mass that will...be attacked in their own element with their families celebrating the holidays.” Further discussing the attack, Mohamud allegedly stated, “...it’s in Oregon; and Oregon like you know, nobody ever thinks about it.”
The affidavit alleges that in subsequent months, Mohamud continued to express his interest in carrying out the attack and worked on logistics. He allegedly identified a location to place the bomb and mailed bomb components to the undercover FBI operatives, who he believed were assembling the device. He also mailed them passport photos, as part of a plan to help him sneak out of the country after the attack. In addition, Mohamud provided the undercover FBI operatives with a thumb drive that contained detailed directions to the bomb location and operational instructions for the attack.
According to the affidavit, on November 4, 2010, Mohamud and the undercover FBI operatives traveled to a remote location in Lincoln County, Ore., where they detonated a bomb concealed in a backpack as a trial run for the upcoming attack. Afterwards, on the drive back to Corvallis, undercover FBI operatives questioned Mohamud as to whether he was capable of looking at the bodies of those who would be killed in the upcoming attack in Portland. According to the affidavit, Mohamud responded, “I want whoever is attending that event to leave, to leave either dead or injured.”
Upon returning to Corvallis that same day, the affidavit alleges that Mohamud recorded a video of himself with the undercover FBI operatives in which he read a written statement that offered a rationale for his bomb attack. On Nov. 18, 2010, undercover FBI operatives picked up Mohamud to travel to Portland in order to finalize the details of the attack.
Earlier this evening, Mohamud was arrested after he attempted to remotely detonate what he believed to be explosives in a van that was parked near the Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Portland, the affidavit alleges.
This case was investigated by the FBI, with assistance from the Oregon State Police, the Corvallis Police Department, the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office, and the Portland Police Bureau. The prosecution is being handled by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Ethan D. Knight and Jeffrey Sweet from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Oregon. Trial Attorneys Jolie F. Zimmerman and David Cora, from the Counterterrorism Section of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, are assisting.
The charges and allegations contained in the criminal complaint are merely allegations, and the defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.
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Two Tucson Men Sentenced for Possession of Child Pornography
Amplify’d from phoenix.fbi.gov
TUCSON, AZ—In two separate cases, a pair of Tucson men have been sentenced to prison for possession of child pornography following successful prosecutions by the U.S. Attorney's Office.
Adam Fell Berner, 47, of Tucson was sentenced to 84 months (seven years) in prison by U.S. District Court Judge David C. Bury. Berner was convicted following his plea of guilty on September 29, 2009.
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigation discovered that Berner had subscribed to several online services which sold child pornography images over the Internet. Financial records revealed Berner paid for these subscriptions on multiple occasions throughout 2006.
In April 2008, a search warrant was executed at Berner's residence and his computer was seized. A forensic examination of the computer revealed 59,108 still images and 7,780 videos of child pornography. Berner was arrested pursuant to a federal indictment. In addition to the first computer, Berner admitted that he possessed another computer which was found to contain over 1,000 images of child pornography.
In the second case, U.S. District Court Judge Raner C. Collins sentenced Mark Nicholas Rossi, 41, of Tucson, Ariz., to 120 months (10 years) in prison. The defendant pleaded guilty on July 12, 2010.
In November 2007, a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent in Chicago, investigating the online trade of child pornography, discovered Rossi was sharing images of child pornography via the Internet. In February 2008, a search warrant was executed at his home and his computer was seized.
A forensic examination of his computer revealed he possessed numerous video and still images of child pornography. It also showed he used the computer to download, share, and view child pornography.
"Both of these defendants contributed to the illicit child pornography industry. Crippling this illegal and aberrant industry is a top priority of my office." said Dennis K. Burke, United States Attorney. "These two cases should serve notice that we will go after anyone who engages in the possession or transfer of child pornography. I want to thank both the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Federal Bureau of Investigation for their work in these cases."
Angela Woolridge, Assistant U.S. Attorney, District of Arizona Tucson handled the prosecution in both cases.
CASE NUMBER: CR-09-0982-TUC-DCB
RELEASE NUMBER: 2010-252(Berner_Rossi)
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Argentine Woman Says Father Raped Her for Years
Amplify’d from www.cbsnews.com
Argentine Woman Says Father Raped Her for Years
Elvira Gomez Alleges Her Father Sexually Abused Her for 30 Years, Having 10 Children with Her
Interactive Sexual Assault
Facts and statistics on sexual assault and rape, with victim resources.
Elvira Gomez, 43, did not report the alleged abuse until her father, Armando Gomez, was recently arrested for robbery.
"I felt that I was a worse than a prisoner for 30 years because I couldn't even talk with anybody. He raped me, beat me for any reason, didn't let me approach other people and always had a loaded gun. He told me: 'I'm going to go to prison, but I'm going to kill you first,"' Gomez said in comments published Friday in the newspaper Clarin.
DNA tests reported this week confirmed that nine of her 10 children were with her father. Tests could not be carried out on her remaining son because he is dead.
Elvira Gomez said she didn't have the courage to report the abuse until now because "since I was a girl he beat me with whatever he had in his hand: a rod or a machete which cut me all over. I spent days in bed."
Her mother died when she was 20 months old, she said.
"Nothing can remove from my head the idea that he did something to her," Gomez said, speaking to the newspaper from her poor home in the village of Nicanor Molinos in Santa Fe province.
She said her eldest son committed suicide before he reached 18 when he learned the truth about his father.
"I always thought he had decided to take his life because of a fight with his girlfriend, but they found a letter explaining it, that he had learned that his grandfather was his father," Gomez said.
Her 62-year-old father, Armando Gomez, is being held in a prison in the municipality of Vera in Santa Fe accused of aggravated sexual abuse with a relative.
He has denied the charges against him.
Gomez said that with her father in jail, "I can now walk the streets without fear. I feel a great relief even though I seldom leave my house because I feel ashamed."
Last year in Austria, Josef Fritzl was found guilty of locking his daughter in a dungeon for 24 years and fathering seven children with her.
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Study: Over 1 in 3 SAfrican Men Admit to Rape
In the Study, More Than 37% of Men Say They Had Raped a Woman; 7% Say They Had Participated in Gang Rape
Amplify’d from www.cbsnews.com
Study: Over 1 in 3 SAfrican Men Admit to Rape
In the Study, More Than 37% of Men Say They Had Raped a Woman; 7% Say They Had Participated in Gang Rape
Facts and statistics on sexual assault and rape, with victim resources.
A 2010 study led by the government-funded Medical Research Foundation says that in Gauteng province, home to South Africa's most populous city of Johannesburg, more than 37 percent of men said they had raped a woman. Nearly 7 percent of the 487 men surveyed said they had participated in a gang rape.
More than 51 percent of the 511 women interviewed said they'd experienced violence from men, and 78 percent of men said they'd committed violence against women.
A quarter of the women interviewed said they'd been raped, but the study says only one in 25 rapes are reported to police.
A survey by the same organization in 2008 found that 28 percent of men in Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal provinces said they had raped a woman or girl. Of the men who had committed rape, one third did not feel guilty, said Rachel Jewkes, a lead researcher on both studies.
Two-thirds of the men surveyed in that study said they raped because of a sense of sexual entitlement. Other popular motivating factors included a desire to punish women who rejected or angered them, and raping out of boredom, Jewkes said.
"Rape is completely trivialized by a great number of men. It is seen as a legitimate activity," she said.
Jewkes believes South Africa's history of racial division and associated trauma is part of the reason of the high incidence of sexual violence in the country.
"Apartheid has contributed to culture of impunity surrounding rape in South Africa," said Jewkes. Men who were abused or experienced trauma during their childhood are much more likely to rape, she said, adding that apartheid destroyed family life, fostering violence and anti-social behavior.
The apartheid period also saw very little enforcement of common law, which has contributed to a culture of impunity, said Jewkes.
"We need to start interventions in childhood, focusing on building a more empowering childhood environment in South Africa, especially for boys," she said, "and we need to make it worth their while for women to report sexual violence."
The new study, conducted with a gender rights advocacy body, is the first community-based study of its kind with women in 12 years.
The group hopes to replicate the study across southern Africa.
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Morocco accused of abusing Western Sahara detainees
Amplify’d from www.bbc.co.uk
Morocco accused of abusing Western Sahara detainees
Moroccan officials have been accused of repeatedly abusing people detained after clashes in Western Sahara by the campaign group Human Rights Watch.
The group said security forces had deliberately targeted civilians in the raid on a protest camp in the disputed territory earlier this month.
At least 12 people were killed in the raid and hundreds injured.
Morocco has not commented on the HRW report but has previously defended the police, saying they acted peacefully.
Troops moved in to shut down the Gadaym Izik camp - outside the regional capital Laayoune - on 8 November.
The camp had been set up by some 20,000 Sahrawis, as a protest against poor living conditions and lack of jobs in the territory.
At least 12 people were killed in the violence which followed the raid. Officials say most of them were members of the security forces.
HRW said its own investigations found that security forces had directly attacked civilians in the camp and then joined with Moroccan civilians in carrying out retaliatory attacks on Sahrawi homes in Laayoune and in preventing some injured people from getting medical care.
It said hundreds of people had been arrested and more than 100 remained in custody.
'Rape threats'
HRW said it had interviewed seven released Sahrawis, all of whom had severe bruising or other injuries.
It said they had all alleged that they had been abused in custody. In some cases, they said they had been beaten until they lost consciousness, had urine thrown at them or were threatened with rape.
Continue reading the main storyWestern Sahara
- Seized by Morocco in 1975 after Spain and Mauritania withdrew
- Polisario Front seeks independence but Morocco is only prepared to grant autonomy
- Territory rich in phosphates, fisheries and possibly offshore oil
- Polisario fought a guerrilla war against Morocco but a ceasefire has been in place since 1991
Lawyers representing those still in custody told HRW one detainee had allegedly been raped while others had also complained of beatings and abuse.
The group called on Morocco to end the abuse of detainees immediately and to carry out an independent investigation into the allegations.
"The security forces have the right to use proportionate force to prevent violence and protect human life, but nothing can justify beating people in custody unconscious," said HRW's Middle East and North Africa director, Sarah Leah Whitson.
Morocco's Interior Minister Taieb Cherkaoui said earlier this month that the police intervention had been peaceful and accused the protesters of using knives and petrol bombs against security forces.
The violence at the camp came on the eve of UN-mediated talks in the United States to try to find a way out of one of Africa's longest-running territorial dispute.
Morocco annexed Western Sahara after Spanish settlers pulled out in 1975.
The Polisario Front founded the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) and waged a guerrilla war against Moroccan troops until a UN-brokered ceasefire in 1991.
Morocco is offering to grant Western Sahara autonomy, but Polisario is demanding a referendum on full independence.
Related stories
Morocco defends protest camp raid
16 NOVEMBER 2010,
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Q&A: Western Sahara clashes
08 NOVEMBER 2010,
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Profile: Western Sahara
09 NOVEMBER 2010,
COUNTRY PROFILES
Spain presses Morocco over raid
12 NOVEMBER 2010,
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Deaths in Morocco Sahara clashes
09 NOVEMBER 2010,
AFRICA
Western Sahara 'beating' after BBC interview
20 MARCH 2010,
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Can the church change its mind? - Fallible Yes - Infallible No
Amplify’d from www.guardian.co.uk
Can the church change its mind?
The pope's views on contraception blur the line between social and moral teaching
I was recently in a conversation when a Catholic woman expressed the hope that the Catholic church would one day have female priests. "Yes, and then they'll say we've always had them," quipped another. She was referring to the fact that, although there have been many changes in the church's teachings over the centuries, it is rare to find any acknowledgment of this in official documents.
The recently published interviews with Pope Benedict have led to speculation about a change in the church's teaching on contraception. Although the interviews reflect his personal opinions and carry no official weight, the pope's cautious acknowledgment that the use of condoms may be justified to protect a sexual partner from HIV suggests some relaxation in the interpretation of the rules. This raises the question as to when, if ever, the church can change its teachings and, if it can, what happens to its claims to truth?
It may be helpful to distinguish between teachings, which are continuously developed in response to changing historical and cultural situations, and the constancy of the church's core beliefs. The Catholic tradition has always taught that both reason and revelation have a role to play in the discernment of truth. Revelation refers to scripture and doctrines such as the Trinity and the Incarnation which are matters of faith. However, reason has an important role to play in enabling us to understand the world and our place within it, and this allows room for plurality and flexibility in applying general principles to particular contexts and in adapting to changes in scientific knowledge.
The modern papacy has blurred the distinction between revealed doctrine and teachings that are open to informed debate, particularly in the areas of sexuality and gender. While Catholic social teaching maintains this distinction by responding to the changing economic and political contexts of modern life, Catholic moral teaching has become more absolutist and authoritarian.
But, at heart, Catholicism holds that there can be no fundamental contradiction between faith and reason, nor between the values and practices that are best for us as individuals and those that are best for society as a whole and for the natural world. Human life belongs within the wider context of God's creation, and we must recognise the interdependencies between ourselves, others and nature, if we are to live well. This means human sexuality can never be viewed as just a private matter, for it is deeply woven into our personal and communal relationships. Even as we seek truth amid the plurality of life and the distorting effects of sin on our judgments and desires, the church teaches that certain principles are non-negotiable, and these relate to the intrinsic dignity of the human made in the image of God. That is why Pope Benedict insists that the focus should not be on condoms but on the "humanisation" of sexuality.
Some of us would argue that this quest for humanisation might be enriched rather than diminished by a change in the church's teachings on issues such as homosexuality and contraception, but this has to be interpreted against a wider horizon of the meaning of life. If we are to find a truthful consistency in the Catholic tradition, we will find it not in its changing social and moral norms, and not in its far from perfect history, but in its most enduring beliefs about God, the human and creation. From these beliefs stems the complex and sometimes confusing task of asking how we should live in terms of love, desire and embodiment.
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