Clipmarks | arifsali's 'children' clips

Remains of children found in 'green Sahara'

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 20:58:20 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

A tiny woman and two children were laid to rest on a bed of flowers 5,000 years ago in what is now the barren Sahara Desert.

The slender arms of the youngsters were still extended to the woman in perpetual embrace when researchers discovered their skeletons in a remarkable cemetery that is providing clues to two civilizations who lived there, a thousand years apart, when the region was moist and green.

Paul Sereno of the University of Chicago and colleagues were searching for the remains of dinosaurs in the African country of Niger when they came across the startling find,

"Part of discovery is finding things that you least expect," he said. "When you come across something like that in the middle of the desert it sends a tingle down your spine."

"Everywhere you turned, there were bones belonging to animals that don't live in the desert," said Sereno. "I realized we were in the green Sahara."

Tags: discovery, desert

FBI concedes Aafia Siddiqui in US custody: lawyer

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 18:41:42 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: www.dictatorshipwatch.com

WASHINGTON, Aug 3: Five years after her mysterious disappearance in Karachi, the FBI has finally conceded that an MIT-trained Pakistani neuroscientist is alive and is in US custody in Afghanistan.

Aafia Siddiqui, 36, disappeared with her three children while visiting her parents’ home in Karachi in March 2003, around the same time the FBI announced that it wanted to question her over her alleged links to Al Qaeda.

Her family’s lawyer Elaine Whitfield Sharp said she believed recent media reports about Mrs Siddiqui’s incarceration increased pressure on the US and Pakistani authorities to divulge more information.

“I don’t believe that they just found Aafia,” she said. “I believe that she was there all along.”

The fate of her three young, American-born children is still unknown.

Before her disappearance, Mrs Siddiqui lived in a Boston suburb of Roxbury and studied at Brandeis University as well as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Tags: united states, fbi

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

Child Prodigies

Sat, 30 Dec 2006 19:07:18 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: 60minutes.yahoo.com

Child Prodigies

They're Gifted...They're Talented...They're Whiz Kids. Meet seven of the most amazing youngsters 60 Minutes has profiled. From a pint-sized Mozart to a prepubescent tennis star. . . they've all achieved way beyond their years.

Tags: cbs, children, genius

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

Grandma and grandpa are good for children

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 22:55:59 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: www.ox.ac.uk

The first national survey about the relationships that adolescents have with their grandparents shows that grandparents who are involved in the upbringing of their grandchildren can contribute to a child’s well-being.

This research led by Oxford University, in collaboration with the Institute of Education, London, challenges previous research showing that grandparents who are heavily committed to looking after their grandchildren could become depressed and have a negative effect on the children.

The research surveyed questionnaires from 1,596 children, aged between 11-16 from across England and Wales, and researchers conducted in-depth interviews with 40 children from a range of backgrounds. Another key finding of the research was that almost a third of maternal grandmothers provided regular care-taking for their grandchildren, with 40 per cent providing occasional help with childcare.

Tags: children, seniors, studies

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

Benefits of bedtime reading

Tue, 13 May 2008 05:08:53 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: education.guardian.co.uk

Reading to young children stimulates their development and gives them a head start when they reach school, according to researchers who have reviewed studies on the effects of reading. Apart from helping their reading, sharing a bedtime story with a child promotes their motor skills, through learning to turn the pages, and their memory. It also improves their emotional and social development.

"You can imagine if someone technologically came up with a widget that would stimulate all aspects of a two-year-old's development, everyone would want to buy it," said Professor Barry Zuckerman, of the department of paediatrics at Boston University school of medicine, who led the study.

Studies show that children who are read to from an earlier age have better language development and tend to have better language scores later in life. Getting children to grip pages with their thumb and forefinger improves their motor skills.

Tags: children, reading

Indian children burn toy guns in protest

Thu, 22 May 2008 20:53:36 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: www.newsvine.com

Hundreds of children from a village in India's insurgency-wracked northeast have burned their toy guns in a symbolic protest against the violence that surrounds them, activists said Thursday.

The children, all younger than 13, held their protest Wednesday, carrying placards reading "We hate toy guns, We love football" as they marched to the local high school playground to light the bonfire.

"The children happily threw their toy guns, mostly look-alikes of AK-47 and M-16 rifles and 9mm pistols, and clapped as they went up in flames," said Amarjit Yumnam, one of the local peace activists who organized the event in Keinou, a village in Manipur state.

Keinou is some 25 miles south of state capital of Imphal.

Villagers said the protest was a reaction to the violence in Manipur, where at least 17 rebel groups have been fighting for independent homelands or autonomy. More than 5,000 people have been killed in the fighting in the past 10 years.

Tags: india, guns, children

Agency says 120,00 kids have month to live

Wed, 21 May 2008 02:35:05 GMT

clipped by: arifsali
clipper's remarks: Famine fears for seven million Ethiopian children

Clip Source: www.cnn.com

EGU VILLAGE, Ethiopia (CNN) -- A year of drought and soaring food prices has threatened the lives of tens of thousands of Ethiopian children.

"We have nothing to feed our children," said Egu's village elder. "We are losing our children day by day."

Ethiopia's Health Ministry, along with UNICEF, monitors the health of thousands of children here, but the number of areas they have been able to regularly visit has been cut in half this year.

The small rains that normally allow Ethiopian farmers to plant a second crop each year did not come this year, adding to an already critical food shortage.

"It's an open crisis, and there are more people than we expected, than the government expected, who need additional food," said Bjorn Ljungqvist, head of UNICEF

There is a crucial shortfall in the supply of therapeutic foods used to treat children with severe acute malnutrition, the UNICEF official said.

Tags: food, ethiopia, health, kids, drought

'My father chose me for himself'

Sun, 04 May 2008 21:57:36 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

She was kidnapped by her father, imprisoned in a cellar for 24 years and had seven babies by him, but Elisabeth Fritzl survived thanks to her devotion to her children. Fears are growing, though, that a transition to normal life could prove impossible, reports Caroline Davies in Amstetten

They won't have told her yet; it is much too soon. Any hopes that Elisabeth Fritzl may have of living a normal life with her children, funded by compensation from the father who imprisoned and repeatedly raped her, will be in vain.

Yesterday it was revealed that Josef Fritzl, the 73-year-old grandfather who incarcerated Elisabeth in a dank dungeon for 24 years beneath the family home and fathered her seven children, is financially ruined, with millions of euros in debts.

As Fritzl was moved to solitary confinement for his own safety, his heavily mortgaged property empire was on the brink of collapse, taking with it any dreams of a haven where Elisabeth and her children could find happiness.

Tags: austria