Clipmarks | arifsali's 'children' clips

Wake up, ignorant grown-ups…

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 21:20:57 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: www.blogwinder.net

[Video]

Tags: environment, children

Adults 'scared to approach children'

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 16:03:52 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

Adults are afraid to interact with other people's children because they fear being labelled a paedophile, according to a report published today by the thinktank Civitas.

The report, Licensed To Hug, calls for regulation and vetting to be relaxed because the "dramatic escalation of child protection measures has succeeded in poisoning the relationship between the generations".

In the past, the report says, adults would have routinely helped children in distress or rebuked those who were misbehaving but now think twice about the consequences. Instead, there was now "an atmosphere of mistrust".

Tags: children, adults

Jolie-Pitt Foundation donates $1M to Iraqi kids

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 04:41:07 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: www.usatoday.com

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's love for children is by no means limited to their own: The couple has donated $1 million to help kids affected by the war in Iraq, the Education Partnership for Children of Conflict announced Wednesday.

The organization will distribute the donation, made through the couple's Jolie-Pitt Foundation, to four organizations working on behalf of children who have lost parents, homes and schools in Iraq. Children in the U.S. who have lost parents in the conflict will also benefit.

"These educational support programs for children of conflict are the best way to help them heal," said Jolie in a written statement from Education Partnership for Children of Conflict, which she co-chairs.

"We hope to encourage others to give to these great organizations," Pitt added in the statement.

Tags: iraq, children

Aid workers raping, abusing children

Tue, 27 May 2008 17:24:52 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: www.cnn.com

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Humanitarian aid workers and United Nation peacekeepers are sexually abusing small children in several war-ravaged and food-poor countries, a leading European charity has said.

Children as young as 6 have been forced to have sex with aid workers and peacekeepers in return for food and money, Save the Children UK said in a report released Tuesday.

After interviewing hundreds of children, the charity said it found instances of rape, child prostitution, pornography, indecent sexual assault and trafficking of children for sex.

"It is hard to imagine a more grotesque abuse of authority or flagrant violation of children's rights," Jasmine Whitbread, chief executive of Save the Children UK, said.

In the report, "No One To Turn To" a 15-year-old girl from Haiti told researchers: "My friends and I were walking by the National Palace one evening when we encountered a couple of humanitarian men. The men called us over and showed us their penises.

Tags: children, united nations

Face of Hunger

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 17:33:49 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

About 60% children in Madhya Pradesh state are malnourished

Lying on a bed is a tiny malnourished child. Her limbs wasted, her stomach bloated, her hair thinning and falling out. Her name is Roshni.

She stares, wide-eyed, blankly at the ceiling. Roshni is six months old. She should weigh 4.5kg. But when she is placed on a set of scales they settle at just 2.9kg.

Roshni is suffering from severe acute malnutrition, defined by the World Health Organisation as weighing less than 60% of the ideal median weight for her height.

Tags: hunger, food, children

Afghan children paying family debts

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 19:06:51 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: english.aljazeera.net

Al Jazeera has discovered that thousands of children, some as young as aged four, are being forced to work in brick factories in Afghanistan.

In the Sokhrod district in the east of the country, which is well known for producing bricks, there are about 38 factories and about 2,200 children are believed to be working in them.

"I don't want to do this with my life. I want to go to school, but I cannot because I am poor," 10-year-old Shafiq Ola told Al Jazeera.

"My family is in debt for $800 and I have to work."

Many of the children were forced into the brick factories after their parents became indebted to the owners.

"They are bonded labour, I am holding them," Mohamed Gul, the owner of one factory in the area near Jalalabad, said.

"They don't have any other option they have to, like a slave, work for me. Each family owes me thousands of aghanis [the Afghan currency]. They have to pay me with their work."

Tags: afghanistan, children

Pakistani boy 'killed by teacher'

Fri, 30 May 2008 18:45:10 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

A student of a religious seminary in Pakistan's Punjab province has died after he was punished by his teacher, police say.

Atif, seven, was hung upside down from a ceiling fan by Maulvi Ziauddin for not memorising his Koran lessons, his fellow students told the police.

Atif's condition deteriorated quickly and he died in the teacher's room. Maulvi Ziauddin has been arrested.

Human rights organisation say Pakistani children are often exposed to abuse.

Tags: pakistan, children, human rights

What Makes Finnish Kids So Smart?

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 19:45:52 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: online.wsj.com

Finland's teens score extraordinarily high on an international test. American educators are trying to figure out why.

High-school students here rarely get more than a half-hour of homework a night. They have no school uniforms, no honor societies, no valedictorians, no tardy bells and no classes for the gifted. There is little standardized testing, few parents agonize over college and kids don't start school until age 7

Yet by one international measure, Finnish teenagers are among the smartest in the world. They earned some of the top scores by 15-year-old students who were tested in 57 countries. American teens finished among the world's C students even as U.S. educators piled on more homework, standards and rules. Finnish youth, like their U.S. counterparts, also waste hours online. They dye their hair, love sarcasm and listen to rap and heavy metal. But by ninth grade they're way ahead in math, science and reading -- on track to keeping Finns among the world's most productive workers

Tags: finland, children, education

New study shows children benefit from drinking chocolate/flavored milk

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 19:38:42 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: www.eurekalert.org

Milk drinkers consume more nutrients; milk has no adverse effects on BMI

Rosemont, Ill. – April 1, 2008– A new study released today in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association found that children who drink flavored or plain milk consume more nutrients and have a lower or comparable body mass index (BMI – a measure of body fatness) than children who don’t drink milk.¹

“Milk contains many nutrients that are important for children. We learned in our research that children who drink milk, including plain and flavored milk, have higher intakes of many nutrients that are low in children’s diets, and comparable or lower BMIs compared to children who don’t drink milk,” said Mary Murphy, MS, RD, co-author of the study. “Limiting access to flavored milks in schools and elsewhere may have the undesirable effect of further reducing intakes of many essential nutrients provided by milk.”

Tags: children, health, nutrition

For today's pedophiles, it's all too easy

Sat, 10 Nov 2007 18:05:23 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: www.theglobeandmail.com

Cellphones, Internet help Westerners share information about where to travel — or move — abroad to seek out sex with children

If the international headlines over the arrest of alleged Canadian pedophile Christopher Neil has put a chill on Southeast Asian sex tourism, it isn't evident on the streets of Ho Chi Minh City. It takes all of 30 minutes to find a boy who earns his living having sex with foreigners.

Just go to the backpacker district, a shabby collection of bars, budget travel agencies and cheap hotels. Sit down at an outdoor table, order a beer and wave to the first street vendor who walks by. A teenaged bookseller in a baseball cap and flip-flops first offers himself, then heads off to find someone even younger.

Tags: sex, pedophiles, children

Bush Veto Baffles Some Republicans

Thu, 04 Oct 2007 21:12:40 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: www.cbsnews.com

In backing President Bush's veto of a children's health bill, many Republicans feel their party has picked the wrong issue to try to regain its long-lost reputation as guardian of prudent federal spending.

"So, the president of the United States is asking 15 Republicans to stand with him on an argument about government-run health care and deny American kids health care, and yet vote at the same time to give Iraq $190 billion,"

Tags: politics, united states, children, republicans

The world's tiniest baby - meet the 10oz bundle of defiance

Fri, 28 Sep 2007 08:46:02 GMT

clipped by: michellezm

Clip Source: www.dailymail.co.uk

When she was born, 15 weeks premature and weighing ten and a half ounces, her father's confidence was about the only thing on Kimberly Mueller's side.

In the few snatched moments he was allowed before his daughter was whisked away by doctors, Andreas Mueller spoke from his heart.

"I whispered to her: 'Kimberly, you'll make it,'" he recalled.

The size of a mobile phone: Kimberley Mueller weighed just over 10 ounces when she was born in Hanover, Germany - making her the world's smallest surviving baby

With a survival chance of less than 1,000 to one, every day she has got through since then is a triumph.

Six months later, Kimberly has finally been allowed to go home to her parents in Hanover.

"Babies as small as this usually have no chance," said Dr Oliver Moeller, a heart specialist who treated her.

Kimberly is the smallest baby ever born in Germany and the youngest to survive.

She was just 10.2 inches long and weighed little more than a packet of butter

Tags: children, neo-natal, babies, medical, current affairs

Police rescue 160 children from child labour

Sat, 29 Jul 2006 17:05:13 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: www.hindu.com

Police rescue 160 children from child labour

The police on Wednesday rescued about 160 children from a Nagappatinam bound "Cholan Express" at railway station here this afternoon.

The children aged between ten to 14, were said to be brought by a private contractor from West Bengal to work in a Myladduthurai ONGC plant.

Police said, on a tip off received from Chennai Child Line office on Wednesday morning, the Child Welfare Committee informed Cuddalore Superintendent of Police Sanjay Kumar that three general boggies of the Cholan Express were carrying the children to make them work in the plant.

When the train reached the station at around 1330 hrs, the police along with railway officials rescued the children.

On questioning, the children, who knew only Bengali and a little of Hindi, informed the police that two persons were taking them in the train and they managed to escape when they saw the police.

The children said the agents paid money to their family inorder to bring them here to work for a private contractor, who had taken up contract work with ONGC plant.

Tags: india, police, children, money, family

Iran rapped over child executions

Wed, 27 Jun 2007 18:21:41 GMT

clipped by: arifsali
clipper's remarks: Allow me to call Iran the most fucked up country in the world. This is the height of their ridiculousness. Who in their right mind would achieve anything by executing children for any goddamn crime (I don't care what kind of crimes these children are committing). This is a shameful act for any nation.

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Human rights group Amnesty International has called on Iran to halt the execution of child offenders.

In a new report, it says Iran is the only country to have executed child offenders so far this year.

It lists the names of 71 other child offenders it says are known to be facing the death penalty.

The organisation defines a "child offender" as a person convicted of crimes they committed when they were under the age of 18.

"Only three other countries have executed child offenders in the past three years according to information received by Amnesty International," says Drewery Dyke of Amnesty International.

"In three years, Iran has executed more child offenders than all those other countries combined. It's now the case that as of June 2007, Iran is the only country to have executed child offenders, having executed two in 2007."

"It's a practice that is increasingly out of step with what Iranians themselves expect from their judicial system."

Tags: iran, children, death

Family found hanged in Texas home

Tue, 29 May 2007 20:33:40 GMT

clipped by: arifsali
clipper's remarks: Shocking. Sad.

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Four children and their mother have been found hanging in their mobile home in the US state of Texas, police said.

A relative found the bodies of a 23-year-old woman and her four daughters aged five, three, two and eight months, in a wardrobe.

The youngest - the only survivor - was taken to hospital when she was discovered still to be breathing.

Police at the scene, about 25 miles (40km) west of Fort Worth, said the deaths appeared to be a murder-suicide.

Parker County Sheriff Larry Fowler said the children had been hanged with strips of clothing and sashes at the Oak Hills mobile home park.

"It's terrible, terrible," he said.

The deceased woman was believed to have been separated from her husband, who had been notified of the deaths, Sheriff Fowler said.

Residents in the rural community with a population of about 1,600 are reported to be stunned.

Tags: suicide, murder, united states, children, family