Archive for March, 2009

Here’s a one-man argument for Jessica’s Law or castration of child sex offenders. Michael McGill has been convicted of repeated sexual assaults against children, and has begged a judge to keep him in prison – “I should be locked up for life” – to keep him from re-offending. He has warned that if he is released, he will commit more sex crimes against children. In letters written last year, he said, “I will do more sex crimes with boys 4 to 14. I will molest with boys 15 to 18.” But after serving just 11 months of a 10-year-sentence, he’s about to be set free by authorities in Iowa. He’s supposed to wear an electronic monitoring bracelet at all times, which won’t keep him from re-offending, just make it a little easier to find him after he damages another child for life. In his letters, he confesses using a compact mirror in once incident to look at the genitalia of a child in an adjacent restroom stall, then crawling underneath the divider to engage in forcible sex. In another incident, he approached a boy from behind at a urinal in another mall and molested him. McGill says at one place, “The reason why I molest boys. It give (sic) me the thrill to be in control of their penises and tell them what to do.” As the Des Moines Register says, “The accounts are sickening and scary.” Amazingly, Iowa authorities say they have no choice but to release him, particularly since a psychologist who examined him under court orders concluded, even after reading the letters, that McGill does not pose enough of a safety threat to be civilly committed. Says the awestruck Register, “A man who admits to being a pedophile, to getting a thrill from sexually assaulting people, who says he has done it multiple times and will do it again, will be released from prison tomorrow, and there isn’t a damn thing anyone can do about it?” Perhaps the court psychologist could be directed by the parole board to bring the offender into his home and let him live with his family. That might be enough to change his professional opinion about the risk he poses to others.

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Basu: Soon-to-be-freed sex offender wrote that he’ll abuse again

REKHA BASU • rbasu@dmreg.com • March 27, 2009

A convicted sex offender due to be released Saturday from prison after serving 11 months warned in letters that if set free, he would reoffend, even against children. In the letters, Michael McGill begged authorities to keep him locked up for life.

“Please throw the book at me … I’m harmful to others I should be locked up for life,” he wrote in block letters that resemble a child’s writing. “I will sexual abuse men. Do this for the safe (sic) of others then I be able not to hurt anyone else. Judge I’m begging you to put me away.”

In another place he wrote that he had told his two 7-year-old male victims, “I will do more sex crimes with boys 4 to 14. I will molest with boys 15 to 18.”

Neither the Polk County attorney’s office, which prosecuted McGill and distributed his letters to other agencies, nor the Iowa Board of Parole, nor the attorney general’s office, which handles civil commitments for sexually violent predators, says it can do anything to prevent McGill’s release.

McGill will at least initially be housed at the community-based Fort Des Moines Correctional Facility, which he won’t be allowed to leave without an officer’s escort. He is supposed to wear an electronic monitoring bracelet at all times and be under maximum supervision for 10 years. But is that enough?

His letters, spanning 22 pages, were obtained Thursday by The Des Moines Register. It’s unclear whether he was addressing anyone in particular. They were written at some point after his latest arrest, in April 2008. Assistant Polk County Attorney Jeff Noble got them June 13, 2008, and sent them days later to officials at the Des Moines Police Department, the Iowa Board of Parole and the Iowa Department of Correctional Services. McGill, 50, wrote that his sexual offenses date to 1976 and that there were 15 victims.

Noble got McGill convicted of his latest offense, intent to commit sexual abuse. McGill tried to grab the penis of a 21-year-old man in a restroom at Valley West Mall on April 30, 2008. In a letter attached to McGill’s letters, Noble wrote that in the very week that McGill was arrested for that crime, he had also been arrested for “viewing or attempting to view” under the stalls in a public men’s room using a mirror. He pleaded guilty to criminal trespass and criminal mischief and was fined $100.

“He apparently maintained his position – that he is a danger to others and intends to reoffend – even after he was incarcerated,” Noble wrote.

“Obviously,” wrote Noble, “these letters are relevant to placement, treatment, parole, supervision, civil commitment and possibly further investigation into other crimes.”

McGill’s letters acknowledge both of the April 2008 incidents. McGill also wrote that among other incidents he:

• Was banned in 1990 from the “Gallery book store” for soliciting sex with young men.

• Was banned from “Younkys” downtown for having sex in a restroom with another man.

• Used a compact mirror in 1990 to look at the genitalia of a child in the next stall, then crawled underneath and had forcible sex with him.

• Approached a boy from behind at a urinal at Merle Hay Mall and molested him in the mid-’90s.

The accounts are sickening and scary.

In one letter, McGill writes: “The reason why I molest boys. It give me the thrill to be in control of their penises and tell them what to do. …”

Yet all those involved in his case say they have no choice but to let him out.

The Iowa Board of Parole had no choice but to approve him for a parole release because he completed the 11 months required on a special 10-year sentence created by the Iowa Legislature, according to executive director Clarence Key Jr. That sentence dictates the supervision he will get after release. Iowa law provides for civil commitment for certain sexually violent predators who have completed their criminal sentences but are considered too dangerous to be out in society.

A five-member Prosecutors Review Committee, appointed by the attorney general, and the county prosecutor who handled the case decide whether to pursue a civil-commitment hearing, according to Bob Brammer, spokesman for the Iowa attorney general’s office.

Brammer said the committee referred McGill’s case to a psychologist who examined McGill and reviewed his records and determined he did not meet the criteria for a civil commitment. He said without the psychologist finding the need for civil commitment, the committee cannot proceed with it. A multidisciplinary team appointed by the director of the Department of Correctional Services reached the same conclusion, Brammer said.

Among the criteria, the person must suffer from a mental abnormality that makes him or her likely to engage in predatory acts, and must have been charged with or convicted of a sexually violent offense. Brammer said McGill’s record contains three other arrests, one for indecent exposure.

Brammer said the psychologist, whom he did not name, was aware of McGill’s letters.

Beth Barnhill heads the Iowa Coalition Against Sexual Assault and sits on the multidisciplinary committee. She said the civil-commitment law is written so narrowly that few sex offenders meet the criteria. “Yes, I think the public is at risk,” she said of McGill’s release.

Barnhill says there is more leverage for holding someone like McGill longer if the original charge is for a higher-level offense or more than one offense.

Asked why McGill’s two April 2008 offenses weren’t combined for a higher-level offense, Noble said that criminal mischief and criminal trespass are simple misdemeanors, which are nonindictable.

Is he concerned about McGill’s release?

“Any sex offender in the community is a concern, some more than others,” is all Noble would say.

All of this makes technical sense, and yet something here defies common sense. A man who admits to being a pedophile, to getting a thrill from sexually assaulting people, who says he has done it multiple times and will do it again, will be released from prison tomorrow, and there isn’t a damn thing anyone can do about it?

Original article at: http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20090327/OPINION01/903270384/-1/SPORTS12

PLEASE PASS THIS INFORMATION ON

THE RECENT TRAGEDY OF A YOUNG WOMAN BEING KIDNAPPED AND EVENTUALLY KILLED;
AFTER SHE HAD REPEATEDLY GIVEN THE KIDNAPPER A WRONG PIN TO HER ATM CARD. 
IF SHE KNEW THE METHOD BELOW, SHE COULD HAVE BEEN SAVED.  SO I THINK IT IS
IMPORTANT ENOUGH TO LET YOU KNOW.

IF YOU SHOULD EVER BE FORCED BY A ROBBER TO WITHDRAW MONEY FROM AN ATM
MACHINE, YOU CAN NOTIFY THE POLICE BY ENTERING YOUR PIN # IN REVERSE FOR
EXAMPLE IF YOUR PIN NUMBER IS 1234 THEN YOU WOULD PUT IN 4321. THE ATM
RECOGNIZES THAT YOUR PIN NUMBER IS BACKWARDS FROM THE ATM CARD YOU PLACED IN
THE MACHINE..THE MACHINE WILL STILL GIVE YOU THE MONEY YOU REQUESTED, BUT
UNKNOWN TO THE ROBBER, THE POLICE WILL BE IMMEDIATELY DISPATCHED TO HELP
YOU.

THIS INFORMATION WAS RECENTLY BROADCASTED ON FOX TV AND THEY STATED THAT IT
IS SELDOM USED BECAUSE PEOPLE DON’T KNOW IT EXISTS.

MAYS LANDING  An Egg Harbor Township police officer admitted in court Friday that he solicited sex from a prostitute while on duty.

Township resident Richard Cavanaugh, 45, pleaded guilty to third-degree official misconduct and lost his job and pension, according to a statement from the state Attorney General’s Office.

The Police Department suspended Cavanaugh without pay in October, when investigators started looking into what they claim was a tryst with a prostitute in December 2007 at a motel on the Black Horse Pike in the West Atlantic City section of the township. Cavanaugh was in uniform when he drove in a squad car to the motel, where a prostitute performed a sexual act on him, according to the statement.

Cavanaugh worked his entire 23-year career with the Egg Harbor Township Police Department. His plea prevents him from ever seeking public employment again. Reached at his home Friday, he declined comment.

It is unclear why it took more than a year to charge Cavanaugh. That happened Friday, when he also pleaded guilty and resigned from the department, according to the statement.

The prostitute cooperated with authorities and was not charged, according to the Attorney General’s Office. Spokesman Peter Aseltine declined to comment on whether authorities contacted the prostitute before or after getting the tip that sparked the investigation. He also declined to name the motel.

Police Chief Blaze Catania declined comment beyond issuing a statement in which he called the incident “troubling.”

“This situation involves the behavior of one person. … In no way should it reflect on any of the 124 honest, truly dedicated, hard-working police officers and civilian employees that make up this police department,” he wrote in the statement.

Cavanaugh pleaded guilty Friday before Atlantic County Superior Court Judge Albert J. Garofolo. He is scheduled to be sentenced May 29, according to the statement.

The state is seeking five years of probation under the plea agreement, the statement said.

Cavanaugh’s attorney, Louis Barbone, did not return calls seeking comment Friday.

This is not the first time Cavanaugh has been the subject of an investigation. A grand jury in 2002 cleared him of wrongdoing in the shooting of motorist Virgil Wright, then 41, after he attacked Cavanaugh during a traffic stop on the Black Horse Pike.

Cavanaugh had stopped Wright at about 9 p.m. July 29, 2002, near Garden State Fuel on the Black Horse Pike. As Cavanaugh was taking down Wright’s information, Wright started punching him, then reached for his gun. The scuffle continued and Cavanaugh fell. Wright then started kicking the officer. Cavanaugh then noticed a knife in Wright’s hand and fired two shots. Wright posted bail after being treated for his injuries and was a fugitive for about four years. He was sentenced in 2007 to seven years in prison on charges of assault and disarming a law enforcement officer.

Cavanaugh was honored in 1999 with a life-saving award from the Police Benevolent Association Mainland Local 77.

E-mail Emily Previti:

EPreviti@pressofac.com

Original article at: http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/186/story/441498.html

27 March 2009

By Natalya Krainova / The Moscow Times

An official with the Defense Ministry’s intelligence branch has been charged with leading an international crime ring trafficking women as sex slaves, a senior investigator said Friday.

The official, a colonel in the ministry’s Main Intelligence Directorate, or GRU, led a crime syndicate that trafficked more than 130 women from Russia and former Soviet republics to work as prostitutes from 1999 to 2007, said Alexander Sorochkin, head of the Investigative Committee’s military investigations directorate, RIA-Novosti reported.

Sorochkin did not release the official’s name.

A total of 13 suspects in the case stand accused of human trafficking, running prostitution rings, forgery, organizing illegal migration and forcing women and minors to work as prostitutes under the threat of violence, Sorochkin said.

Ten of the suspects have been placed under arrest, while the remaining three have been released after it was determined that they were not flight risks, he said.

Repeated calls to the Investigative Committee’s military investigations spokesman, Sergei Zhukov, and to the GRU press office went unanswered Friday. Defense Ministry spokesman Alexander Drobyshevsky said he had no information on the case.

The crime syndicate sold women from Russia, Uzbekistan, Moldova, Ukraine and Belarus into sex slavery in several European and Middle East countries, including Isreal, Italy, German, Greece, the Netherlands and United Arab Emirates, Sorochkin said, RIA-Novosti reported.

The countries to where the women were purportedly trafficked are major destinations for sex slaves from former Soviet countries, Afsona Kadyrova, a lawyer with the Angel Coalition, an umbrella organization of anti-trafficking NGOs operating in nine Russian regions, told The Moscow Times.

In the past two years, the number of women trafficked from former Soviet countries to work in the sex trade has decreased due to rising living standards and increased awareness by potential victims about plots to lure women into forced prostitution, Kadyrova said.

Original Article at: http://www.moscowtimes.ru/article/600/42/375728.htm

By MIKE SULLIVAN
Crime Editor

Published: 27 Mar 2009

 

SERIAL sex attacker Kirk Reid should have been nabbed more than FIVE YEARS before he was finally hauled off the streets, it emerged yesterday.

But a string of clues were ignored until a second police team was called in to investigate — and solved the case of the Night Bus Beast after just FIVE DAYS.

Reid, 44, had pounced on at least 20 women in the time between cops quizzing him after he was spotted following a woman in December 2002 and his eventual arrest in February 2008.

Bus … used by victims

The chef was convicted yesterday of two rapes and 25 indecent assaults. Police linked him to 71 other attacks and they fear it could be hundreds.

During her summing up, Judge Shani Barnes criticised police for their “years of inadequate work”.

Afterwards Met Police Commander Mark Simmons said: “It is clear from the evidence heard in court that the standard of investigation was not what we as an organisation, or the victims should have expected.

“If any woman feels let down by the service, level of attention or the standard of investigation they received from the police I am sorry.”

Clasping

Met Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson said he was “deeply disturbed” by the case.

It also emerged the same Operation Sapphire sex crimes unit which failed to catch Reid also bungled an investigation into a rape on their patch by cabbie John Worboys.

Reid targeted women as they left buses or Tube stations in South London. He followed them in the dark, sometimes in his Volkswagen Golf and sometimes on foot.

Rapist … Warboys

Many were shadowed from the N155 night bus, with attacks in the Clapham, Balham and Brixton areas where Reid had lived all his life.

Often he would strike on their doorsteps as they fumbled for keys — grabbing them from behind, clasping a hand over their mouth and molesting them.

Victims included a lawyer and a university lecturer. About a fifth were Oriental and have since returned to the Far East.

One woman was six-months pregnant when she was attacked entering a block of flats. CCTV cameras which would have captured Reid were not working.

A blonde New Zealander was wearing a blue wig and knee-high boots when she was attacked after a Halloween party.

She said: “I didn’t see or hear anything. Suddenly I felt a hand between my legs and another over my mouth. I was actually lifted off the ground.”

An Australian barmaid said: “I was shaking, I was very scared.”

Another victim told how she was attacked while speaking to her boyfriend on her mobile. She said: “He thought I was being murdered.” Yet another wept as she recalled how she was pinned to the ground and feared she would suffocate.

One said Reid appeared “insane”, another that afterwards he “looked like nothing had happened”.

Police officially linked Reid to 71 serious sexual offences, but one detective said: “The true figure will be in the hundreds.”

Terror … map of attacks

Reid — who refereed women’s and children’s soccer games and coached a kids’ team — first raped an ex-girlfriend in the mid-1990s.

In 1994 he was charged with an assault in the West End. His DNA was taken but his profile was removed from the national database when he was acquitted.

In August 2001 Reid’s DNA was found under a victim’s fingernails. More samples were later discovered after another assault and a rape.

He appeared “panicky” when he was quizzed in December 2002 — and was wearing a striped hat similar to one described by some victims.

He was not arrested, and still remained at large in January 2004 despite his car registration number being given to cops by a drunk caller who saw him attack a victim.

The following month a woman officer mentioned Reid to the Sapphire team cops. She was suspicious after questioning him for tooting at a lone woman. This time he was wearing a black cap, again like one described by other victims.

The WPC checked Reid’s details on computer and read of his previous encounters with police and his 1994 acquittal.

 

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He was put on a list of 11 suspects, but cops focused on two other men instead. No action was taken even when Reid was repeatedly pulled over for roadside checks in the area — nine times in 2007 alone.

A source said: “On the face of it, he was an ordinary hard-working guy with girlfriends and was reasonably well off with a portfolio of property. He didn’t fit the image of a sex attacker.”

Failings

Prosecutor Patricia Lees told his five-week trial at Kingston Crown Court: “The same Tube stations and bus routes feature again and again. Not only was the defendant very familiar with the areas where these attacks took place, some were virtually on his doorstep.” She went on: “The investigating techniques were inadequate. These failings allowed Reid to remain at large and continue preying on women.”

The vital connections were not made until January 2008 when the case was passed to the Homicide and Serious Crime Command.

Within three days officers visited Reid and took a DNA sample. Two days later he was arrested.

He was seen in cells by his policeman half-brother PC Roger Reid. He said Reid told him: “I did it.”

Roger said: “What, all of it?” Reid answered: “Yes.” He went on: “Just forget about me. You know there is DNA and everything else.”

Yesterday Reid — who has worked at Madame Tussauds and posh Langham’s Brasserie — was convicted by a jury. He had already admitted two other assaults.

Sir Paul … ‘disturbed’

Smartly dressed in a dark suit, blue shirt and tie, Reid showed no emotion as he was convicted and was remanded in custody for reports.

The scandal follows anger at the SAME Sapphire unit’s bungled investigation into rapist Worboys, 51.

The Wandsworth-based team — along with other Met officers — failed to act over evidence about a rape in their patch.

Worboys went on to continue spiking drinks he offered to women passengers, raping and molesting an estimated 200 of them. He was finally convicted this month.

The Reid case will now go before the Independent Police Complaints Commission.

But amazingly the woman in charge for much of the investigations has been PROMOTED, The Sun can reveal.

Insiders said Det Chief Insp Sue Knight ordered officers to scale down the manhunt to concentrate on other crimes.

One senior Met source said: “Her decision-making process forms part of the IPCC inquiry.”

IPCC Commissioner Deborah “The public will understandably ask if some of these attacks could have been prevented and, indeed, if the police took the victims as seriously as they should.”

ANYONE who believes they have been a victim of Reid is urged to call police on 0800 121 4441.

 

Original Article at: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2344271.ece

Domestic violence carries ’substantial financial price,’ study finds

FRIDAY, March 27 (HealthDay News) — Women who are physically or psychologically abused by their partners spend more each year on health care, even years after the abuse stops, a new report says.

The long-term study of more than 3,300 women in the Pacific Northwest revealed that women in ongoing abusive relationships spent about 42 percent more a year on physical and mental health-care services than did women not in abusive relationships.

Even those who had not been subjected to abuse in at least five years spent 19 percent a year more for health care than those who had never suffered abuse from an intimate partner, according to findings by a team from Ohio State University, the Group Health Cooperative, and the University of Washington in Seattle.

“Along with all the physical and emotional pain it causes, domestic violence also comes with a substantial financial price,” Amy Bonomi, an associate professor of human development and family science at Ohio State and a co-author of the study, said in a news release from the university.

In relationships involving psychological abuse, such as verbal threats, stifling control by a partner and other such tactics, women spent 33 percent more on health care than their non-abused peers, even though the incidents had occurred not at the time of the survey but within the previous five years.

Abuse victims sought care from specialists, prescription services and radiology far more than other women, the report found

The findings were published online in the journal Health Services Research.

The study, which included data from 1992 to 2002, found that physically and psychologically abused women sought help from mental health services at least twice as often as women who were not abused, Bonomi said.

“This lends support to the idea that mental health providers should always ask women about their abuse history when they first come in for treatment,” she said.

Original article at: http://health.usnews.com/articles/health/healthday/2009/03/27/health-care-costs-go-up-and-stay-up-for-abused.html

Commentary By Christine Brennan

Madness

As the father of two athletic daughters, President Obama should know all about the importance of sports for women and girls.

Which is why he should have filled out not only a men’s NCAA tournament bracket but also a women’s tournament bracket in his well-publicized appearance on ESPN last week.

I realize the men’s tournament is much more popular than the women’s, and Obama is a big men’s hoops fan and avid player, but the fact remains there is another top-notch college basketball tournament going on at the same time, and he absolutely should have acknowledged it.

He also should have insisted on saying his bracket was for the “men’s NCAA tournament.”

Those who don’t use that pesky little adjective — and you know who you are — are acting as if there’s no women’s tournament at all, or it’s so beneath them, it’s not worth mentioning. This is rather silly. It is 2009, after all.

While we’re on the subject of adjectives, why do some schools still insist on calling their women’s teams “Lady” this or “Lady” that? Is there any men’s team out there that calls itself the “Gentlemen” (add the nickname)? Of course not. The best-known of the tea-and-crumpets set is the Lady Vols, who were upset by Ball State Sunday night in a tough, bruising, very unladylike game.

Defenders claim the use of “Lady” is tradition. It might be that, but it’s also degrading and entirely unnecessary.

Original Article at: http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/sports/20090324/c3chris24_st.art.htm

By Sharon Pian Chan

Seattle Times staff reporter

Six alleged members of a West Seattle street gang have been charged in connection with the forced prostitution of women and juveniles. One of them is charged under a 6-year-old law that specifically targets human trafficking.

Investigators believe members of a gang called the Westside Street Mobb forced 12 women and girls to perform sex acts for money, beat them and took the money they earned over several months last year, according to charges filed in King County Superior Court.

The Legislature in 2003 passed a law that criminalized human trafficking — recruiting, transporting or harboring a person with the understanding he or she would be forced by fraud or coercion into involuntary servitude.

This is the first time King County has charged anyone under the law.

Washington was the first state to make trafficking a state crime.

DeShawn Clark, an 18-year-old who also goes by “Cash” or “Cash Money,” was charged in November with promoting prostitution and other charges. Prosecutors added the charge of second-degree human trafficking Friday.

Clark has pleaded not guilty and his trial is scheduled to begin in May.

Thomas L. Foster, 19, was also charged in November, and several other members were charged with various related counts Friday, including Shawn S. Clark, 20; Gerald Jackson, 21; Mycah Johnson, 19; and Desmond Manago, 20.

According to charging papers, the arrests stem from a November sting operation in which members of the Seattle police vice unit arrested a 19-year-old woman who had advertised sex services on Craigslist.

The woman said DeShawn Clark forced her to commit sex acts for money, beat her and took her earnings, charging papers said.

The woman led police to other women who investigators believe were forced into prostitution, charging papers said.

The King County Sheriff’s Office had separately started investigating Shawn S. Clark and Gerald Jackson in September and the two agencies began sharing information, according to charging papers.

The women claimed they were forced to work at a hotel in Portland, hotels in Seattle and Tukwila and at a basement apartment in the 10400 block of Des Moines Memorial Drive South, charging papers said.

Investigators say the gang, which is affiliated with the Bloods, has 20 to 30 members involved in robbery, drug sales, weapon possession and aggravated assaults, according to charging papers.

Charges against DeShawn Clark now include second-degree human-trafficking, first-degree promoting prostitution, two counts of promoting commercial sexual abuse of a minor, second-degree assault, unlawful imprisonment and drug possession.

Foster has pleaded not guilty to two counts of promoting prostitution and second-degree assault.

Shawn S. Clark, Jackson and Manago were charged with promoting prostitution.

Johnson was charged with promoting commercial sexual abuse of a minor.

Original Article at:  http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008926143_hookers25m0.html

Johann Hari: She showed the brutal reality of Britain

In her short life, this big-hearted and big-mouthed woman reflected our own bigotry and stupidity

YUI MOK/PA

Jade leaves the Big Brother house at Elstree studios in 2002

• © Jade Goody: A life in pictures

VATICAN CITY — Feminists of the world sit down before you read this. The Vatican newspaper says that perhaps the washing machine did more to liberate women in the 20th century than the pill or the right to work.

The submission was made in a lengthy article titled “The Washing Machine and the Liberation of Women – Put in the Detergent, Close the Lid and Relax.”

11:15am UK, Tuesday March 17, 2009

Julia Reid in Sankt Poelten, Austria

An Austrian lawyer has told Sky News Online that antiquated laws mean that sex offenders like Josef Fritzl are lost in the system in Austria.

Ashamed: Fritzl covers his face as he enters court

Raoul Wagner, who is based in Vienna, said that similar cases could be avoided if the law was brought up-to-date.

Under Austrian law, rape convictions are deleted from criminal files after 10 years.

For this reason, there was no record of Fritzl’s previous sex offences when he applied to adopt three of Elisabeth’s ‘deserted’ children.

Although social services visited Fritzl’s ‘house of horrors’, they found no indication of his dark past.

“I find it outrageous,” said Mr Wagner. “This is an old law, from 1972, but the effect of it is that you can’t keep track of sex offenders.

“After 10 years it is as though a rape never happened. It is deleted.

“It is not surprising that everyone in Amstetten thought the accused was harmless and nobody was suspicious. He was totally clean in a legal sense.”

As the case against Fritzl opened at the court in Sankt Poelten, protesters handed out leaflets damning child protection guidelines in the country.

One campaign, from a right-wing group, even claimed that child abuse was a “tradition” in Austria.

‘Blood stained’ plastic dolls scattered on the floor outside the court served to illustrate their point, that ‘Austria protects sex offenders’.

Mr Wagner was not involved with the protests, but says a change in the law is essential.

“With all the knowledge we have now about the development of sex offenders it is clear that something that must change,” he said.

Lawyer Raoul Wagner

“Only criminals benefit from the law as it currently stands. There is no register of sex offenders. It is a silent topic around here.”

Austria’s legal system has also been criticised for its sentencing restrictions.

Unless the prosecution can prove the murder charge, it is possible that Fritzl could be released from prison in just over six years – a quarter of the time he allegedly held his daughter as a sex slave.

Austrian sentences cannot run consecutively so the most likely maximum is a 15-year jail term for rape.

If Fritzl behaves in jail, he could serve just half that time – minus the year he has already spent behind bars in Sankt Poelten.

Mr Wagner said:”The case for murder is very thin because the corpse has been burnt, and there is no real precedent for the enslavement charge.

“We don’t have a history of long jail sentences in Austria. There have been lots of horrendous cases with limited sentences.”

But critics of this view say it is unrealistic that Fritzl would be released early and claim that he will, in any case, be held in secure psychiatric accommodation for the rest of his life.

HEALTHY ENVIRONMENT: More conservative policies help avoid outside crush.

By ELIZABETH BLUEMINK
ebluemink@adn.com

Published: March 15th, 2009 10:08 PM
Last Modified: March 16th, 2009 07:46 AM

Most major banks and credit unions in Alaska seem to be in good health, despite the worsening news about the economy and the recent bailout of troubled national banks.

One positive sign is that many of the state’s largest banks and credit unions grew in local profits, revenue, loan activity or deposits last year.

What will happen this year is a different question. Last year, many local financial institutions benefited from high oil prices and fatter-than-normal Permanent Fund dividends. This year, oil and mineral prices are down, tourism is expected to suffer and some of the state’s largest employers are laying off workers.

But because most banks in Alaska avoided risky loans, and because economists aren’t predicting severe job losses in Alaska this year, Anchorage financial executives don’t expect the sort of meltdown and loss of shareholder confidence that has pummeled their colleagues in the Lower 48.

“There’s a dislocation between what people are seeing on the national news and what’s happening here,” said Jason Roth, chief financial officer at First National Bank Alaska.

ADEQUATE BACKING?

According to regulatory filings at the end of last year, all of the state’s major banks exceeded federal regulators’ threshold for maintaining enough financial backing to cover the risk of failed loans. And that includes the three banks — Wells Fargo, Key Bank and Alaska Pacific Bancshares — that accepted money from the U.S. Treasury as part of its Troubled Asset Relief Program, otherwise known as the national bank bailout or TARP.

Credit unions also seem to be doing OK, though they say they are affected by the financial woes of their customers.

“Most credit unions in Alaska are well capitalized but these are tough times,” said James Wileman, president of the Alaska Credit Union League.

Members of his Sitka credit union, for example, are hurting due to troubles in the community’s tourism- and fishing-dependent economy, he said.

Like Alaska’s banks, the credit unions recently had to begin paying a higher premium into a national fund that protects customer deposits if financial institutions fail.

“All the credit unions (and banks) in the country had to pay in,” Wileman said, noting that because it was a one-time event, his company does not plan to pass along that cost to its customers.

HEAVEY LOSSES

Several banks in Alaska have benefitted from the national bailout.

Juneau-based Alaska Pacific received $4.8 million from TARP this year — the only Alaska-based bank to do so. The Juneau bank suffered financial losses last year due to delinquent loans. Over half those loans were in the Lower 48 and involved troubled real estate projects. As a result, the bank suspended its dividends to investors in the final part of 2008.

Key Bank suffered a $1.5 billion national loss in 2008, in part because it needed to reserve a large part of its income for delinquent loans, according to its most recent financial statement. In November, Key Bank accepted a $2.5 billion loan from the Treasury’s TARP fund.

But Key Bank says its business grew in Alaska last year: lending increased 16 percent last year.

In October, Wells Fargo Bank accepted a $25 billion loan from the TARP that it says it didn’t want or need, and only took at the insistence of federal officials.

The bank reported a $2.6 billion profit last year and its business in Alaska was the best it’s ever been, said the bank’s regional president Richard Strutz.

In Alaska, Wells Fargo’s revenue and deposits grew more than 9 percent last year, and its loan activity increased more than 4 percent.

Strutz said he doesn’t expect this year to go as well. “We haven’t escaped the issues in the Lower 48,” he said, noting lower commodity prices and the predicted downturn in tourism.

PROSPERING BANKS

How did Alaska’s prospering banks avoid the troubles of others that have generated cringe-inducing headlines in recent months?

Last year’s strong economy and high oil prices certainly played a role. But local banks also claim they were more conservative than some of their larger colleagues.

“You don’t see community banks putting people in loans that aren’t appropriate and you don’t see them with toxic assets,” said Roth, of First National.

His bank and Anchorage-based Northrim BanCorp both decided not to participate in the TARP program. Both banks were profitable last year.

First National’s annual profit last year increased about 13 percent to $42.9 million and the value of its assets was about $2.4 billion.

Northrim reported a $6.1 million profit last year and assets of $1 billion.

Find Elizabeth Bluemink online at adn.com/contact/ebluemink or call 257-4317.

ending

POSTED: 11:04 pm EDT March 15, 2009
UPDATED: 11:50 am EDT March 16, 2009

Australian cardinal calls for confrontation of religious intolerance

By Simon Caldwell
Catholic News Service

LONDON (CNS) — Confronting religious intolerance regularly and publicly is among the “crucial tasks” of Christians in the 21st century, said an Australian cardinal.

Cardinal George Pell of Sydney said the Catholic Church’s freedom in the Western world was under pressure from a new and dangerous trend of the use of anti-discrimination laws and human rights claims to attack the role of religion in public life and individuals’ right of conscience.

In a March 6 lecture titled “Varieties of Intolerance: Religious and Secular,” he said Christians needed to “recover their self-confidence and courage” if they were to counter the problem.

“Put simply, Christians have to recover their genius for showing that there are better ways to live and to build a good society,” he told the Oxford University Newman Society.

“The secular and religious intolerance of our day needs to be confronted regularly and publicly,” he said. “Believers need to call the bluff of what is, even in most parts of Europe, a small minority with disproportionate influence in the media. This is one of the crucial tasks for Christians in the 21st century.”

As his primary example of mounting intolerance, Cardinal Pell cited the treatment of U.S. Christians and Mormons who supported Proposition 8, the constitutional amendment that reversed California’s gay marriage law in November.

He described how churches and temples were subjected to violence, vandalism and intimidation, and how some supporters of the amendment were forced from their jobs and blacklisted.

“We should note the strange way in which some of the most permissive groups and communities, for example, Californian liberals in the case of Proposition 8, easily become repressive, despite all their high rhetoric about diversity and tolerance,” he said.

“There is the one-sidedness about discrimination and vilification,” he said, because anti-Christian “blacklisting and intimidation is passed over in silence.”

Cardinal Pell added that in a healthy democracy people should be free to discuss and criticize each other’s beliefs.

Reciprocity, he said, was essential to this but “some secularists seem to like one-way streets,” seeking to drive Christianity from the provision of education, health care and welfare services to the wider community.

The cardinal predicted a “major escalation in the culture wars” if President Barack Obama signed into law the Freedom of Choice Act, which would sweep away restrictions on abortion and deny medical practitioners and hospitals the right to conscientiously object to participating in abortions. As of March 10, the act had not been introduced in Congress.

“Clearly there is an urgent need to deepen public understanding of the importance and nature of religious freedom,” said Cardinal Pell. “Believers should not be treated by government and the courts as a tolerated and divisive minority whose rights must always yield to the minority secular agenda.”

He explained that the effect of the rising intolerance of modern liberalism was to “enforce conformity” and to strip Christianity of the power of its public witness.

“There is no need to drive the church out of services if the secularization of its agencies can achieve this end,” he added.

The pressure against religion in public life, he said, stemmed mainly from a misplaced belief in “absolute sexual freedom.”

He said that as sexual freedom became a driver of consumption, people could see the “re-emergence of slavery in Europe and Asia, the booming exploitation of pornography and prostitution, and the commercialization of surrogacy, egg donation, and the production and destruction of human embryos and human stem-cell lines.”

An honor student says she was attacked in her Bronx high school after sending Chancellor Joel Klein 25 e-mails over three months begging to be transferred away from bullies who were threatening her.

Kimselle Castanos, 14, handed Klein a letter on Dec. 15 at a Brooklyn meeting pleading for a transfer after months of being terrorized by a band of teens at the Foreign Language Academy of Global Studies.

Klein took the letter and asked her to e-mail him. She did.

“Please, chancellor,” she said in a Dec. 22 note. “At least write to me. I am scared about what they are going to do to me.”

Klein replied that he would look into it. But he never wrote the girl again – despite two dozen follow-up e-mails.

Kimselle appealed to Klein only after being rejected for a transfer by the Bronx Office of Enrollment. In all, her family visited the office six times, starting in October.

The officials finally listened on Feb. 11 – the day Kimselle was assaulted in the cafeteria.

A girl yanked Kimselle’s ponytail so hard she heard a crack in her neck.

“I turned around to see who it was . . . and there were, like, 16 kids there,” said Kimselle, who has been out of school with “contusions” on her neck and must wear a brace.

The attackers – from a special-education school that shares the building with FLAGS – had been harassing students since October. One of Kimselle’s friends suffered a broken jaw in a clash. Another was beaten up.

The kids started stalking Kimselle after school.

“I was really scared,” she said.

Kimselle’s mother, Kenia, 47, was furious.

“This is exactly what we were trying to stop,” she said. “But no one would help. No one would listen.”

Chancellor’s Regulation A-449 says safety transfers can be granted if “continued presence in the school is unsafe for the student,” but documentation of a threat is required.

Department of Education spokeswoman Margie Feinberg said the girl was rejected because the family did not provide such documentation.

She added that the Office of Enrollment was “in constant contact” with the family and offered counseling.

Feinberg said all e-mails Klein received were forwarded to the Office of School Enrollment.

Last week – after the family filed a police report and a school incident report as documentation – Kimselle was transferred to the Bronx Leadership Academy.

“I don’t understand why it took me getting hurt,” said Kimselle, whose parents plan to sue the city.

Lawyer Matthew Sakkas said, “The DOE had every opportunity to take a proactive stance so they could have avoided this, and they never did it.”

angela.montefin

Minister beaten after clashing with Muslims on his TV show

By Jonathan Petre
Last updated at 12:37 PM on 15th March 2009

A Christian minister who has had heated arguments with Muslims on his TV Gospel show has been brutally attacked by three men who ripped off his cross and warned: ‘If you go back to the studio, we’ll break your legs.’

The Reverend Noble Samuel was driving to the studio when a car pulled over in front of him. A man got out and came over to ask him directions in Urdu.

Mr Samuel, based at Heston United Reformed Church, West London, said: ‘He put his hand into my window, which was half open, and grabbed my hair and opened the door.

Frightened: TV minister Noble Samuel

He started slapping my face and punching my neck. He was trying to smash my head on the steering wheel.

Then he grabbed my cross and pulled it off and it fell on the floor. He was swearing. The other two men came from the car and took my laptop and Bible.’

The Metropolitan Police are treating it as a ‘faith hate’ assault and are hunting three Asian men.

In spite of the attack, Mr Samuel went ahead with his hour-long live Asian Gospel Show on the Venus satellite channel from studios in Wembley, North London. During the show the Muslim station owner Tahir Ali came on air to condemn the attack.

Pakistan-born Mr Samuel, 48, who was educated by Christian missionaries and moved to Britain 15 years ago, said that over the past few weeks he has received phone-in calls from people identifying themselves as Muslims who challenged his views.

‘They were having an argument with me,’ he said. ‘They were very aggressive in saying they did not agree with me. I said those are your views and these are my views.’

He said that he, his wife Louisa, 48, and his son Naveed, 19, now fear for their safety, and police have given them panic alarms. ‘I am frightened and depressed,’ he said. ‘My show is not confrontational.’

FOR GOD’S SAKE can we stop already with the abortion canard ?!

Women throughout the world are being turned into sushi, dying in poverty, gang raped to “cure lesbianism” and beheaded for walking down the street with a man who is not a relative.

In the United States physical abuse of women and girls is exploding, beheadings and “honor killings” are becoming commonplace, human trafficking aka sex slavery is epidemic and Women’s History Month is all but ignored.

Meanwhile back at the ranch aka the Obama Administration, the big abortion push is on on all fronts.That is their idea of upholding women’s rights , giving men a way to get out of being responsible for the children they created. (sHUT UP BITCH YOU CAN GET AN ABORTIONSO WHAT’S THE PROBLEM?)And tricking women into believing that as long as abortion is easily available women have nothing to complain about.

ABORTION IS A RED HERRING, A CANARD , A FALSE BENEFIT.
ABORTION IS MORE ABUSE OF WOMEN.
No woman is excited about having an abortion.Women at least those who are not completely brainwashed or brain dead, do not want their offspring cut from their bodies or chemically burned out. It is an issue used to DIVIDE women. If we took care of the other really critical issues such as murder, rape, cultural respect, education and personal respect then women would not feel forced to have abortions.

So why do politicians like the Obama administration keep shoving down our throats like Clinton with Lewinski?
Because then they don’t have to deal with the REAL issues of women’s well being and human rights because then they would have to admit that WOMEN ARE HUMANS TOO not just sexual or political OBJECTS to be used and discarded when they are through with them.

At UN Obama Reps Push for “Sexual and Reproductive Health”

By Samantha Singson

NEW YORK, NY, March 13, 2009 (C-FAM) – The annual Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) meeting continues at the United Nations (UN) this week and delegates have begun the arduous task of negotiating the “outcome document” – a non-binding agreement on HIV/AIDS and care-giving that is the focus of this year’s session.  While the meetings have been closed to non-government organizations (NGOs), the United States (US) delegation has openly stated that “sexual and reproductive health and rights” would be a priority issue for the Obama administration.

At a briefing hosted by the United States, a member of the US delegation, Ellen Chesler, stated that it was a specific priority of the US delegation to ensure that “comprehensive sexual and reproductive health and rights” are included in the document. The term “sexual and reproductive health and rights” has been interpreted by radical feminist NGOs and some governments to include abortion.

Chesler, who authored a biography praising the work of Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger,  also included “comprehensive sexual education, rights and services,” promotion of a new UN gender office, as well as US commitment to ratify the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW)” as priority issues for the Obama administration at this CSW.

At the end of the briefing, an audience member questioned the Obama administration’s support for abortion despite the myriad scientific evidence which shows how detrimental it is to the lives and health of women. Chesler dismissed the woman’s question stating that the evidence is “unreliable because it has ideological elements.”

Another contentious provision in the draft CSW document calls on states to support the CEDAW committee’s non-binding “concluding comments.” 185 countries have ratified the convention, but language supporting the CEDAW committee’s concluding recommendations remains controversial.  The CEDAW committee has questioned more than 70 nations on their abortion laws, even going so far as creating their own “general recommendation” that reads abortion into the document even though the nations that negotiated the treaty made sure that controversial issue was never mentioned.

Delegations are expected to battle over the CEDAW paragraph in negotiations this week over concerns that the committee is pressuring countries on abortion.  Some feminist NGOs at the CSW, however, already consider abortion an accepted part of CEDAW and have now set their sights on using the CEDAW committee to protect “lesbian rights” and same-sex “marriage.”

At an event commemorating 30 years of CEDAW, the Centre for Women’s Global Leadership claimed that CEDAW successfully established a “right to abortion” by linking it to “reproductive health.” Organizers argued that now the CEDAW committee should focus on protecting a “woman’s right to choose their partners,” which is not limited to members of the opposite sex.

The CSW will conclude in New York on Friday.

(This article reprinted with permission from http://www.c-fam.org)

VANCOUVER, Washington (CNN) — When 13-year-old Alycia Nipp didn’t come home from a trip to Wal-Mart, her family had no idea where she was, but a tracking device was transmitting the location of her alleged killer.

Alycia Nipp, 13, was a free spirit, her aunt says, and liked to collect neon drinking straws.

1 of 3

The quirky seventh-grader, who went by “Licy,” could tell you the origin of every neon drinking straw in her collection and she “sewed buttons on everything,” said her aunt, Amber Hager.

Her family thinks her free-spirited nature may be the reason she walked through a field popular with transients — a field she’d been warned to stay away from and where her body was found February 22.

Licy’s family had reason to be cautious. Hager was raped twice as a teen and Licy’s grandmother was kidnapped as a child, Hager said, so the family was extra vigilant with Licy and Hager’s young daughters.

“We all made Licy the promise that it would never happen to her. The cycle would end,” said Hager, who is acting as family spokeswoman. “Now we’re left wondering: What didn’t we say? What didn’t we do? How come she didn’t listen?” Watch Hager advise parents to keep kids close »

Darrin Sanford, 30, was one of several homeless people living near the field in an abandoned home slated for demolition, police said.

He was convicted in 1998 of communicating with a minor for immoral purposes and luring minors with sexual motivation; he was sentenced to probation, said a Clark County sheriff’s report. When he was released from jail in January, following a November probation violation, Sanford was fitted with a global positioning tracking unit on his ankle, according to the Washington Department of Corrections. Learn more about the device Sanford wore »

Sanford was wearing the device seven weeks later when he tried to rape Licy before beating and stabbing her in a field a couple of blocks from the street where she lived, according to police.

Authorities said they used GPS to corroborate Sanford’s confession. A Clark County judge this week postponed his arraignment until June so the defense and prosecution can prepare for death penalty arguments.

Sanford’s defense attorney Michael Foister declined to comment on the allegations against his client.

Debate over GPS

The slaying rocked the enclave of Hazel Dell in Vancouver, a 15-minute drive from Portland, Oregon, and serves as fodder for those who claim GPS is used too broadly and bluntly as a tool for keeping tabs on offenders.

“They can’t monitor it live, and even if you could monitor it live, him being in the field wouldn’t have told you [if] he was murdering the girl,” said Evan Mayo-Wilson, an Oxford University lecturer who has studied the use of GPS.

There are two types of GPS monitoring: active, in which the offender’s whereabouts are surveyed in real-time, and passive, in which probation or parole officers check an offender’s movements after the fact.

Sanford was passively monitored, said Anmarie Aylward, the Washington DOC’s program administrator. Watch Aylward explain how Sanford was monitored »

Both types of GPS are important tools for law enforcement, Mayo-Wilson said, but the technology must be coupled with other efforts to reduce recidivism, including treatment programs, personal visits and interviews with neighbors, family members and employers.

Sex offenders should be assessed on a case-by-case basis, and supervision programs must be based on fluid assessments that weigh the likelihood of reoffense, said Peter Ibarra, a sociologist at the University of Illinois-Chicago who studies the use of GPS in stalking and domestic violence cases.

“You have to use it very responsibly,” Ibarra said. “It’s a technology that cannot stand alone, especially if you’re thinking about using it with offenders who imperil the public.”

Sanford was registered as a Level 3 sex offender, the category considered most likely to reoffend, according to the Clark County Sheriff’s Office. He was listed as homeless on the state sex offender registry, one of 34 transient sex offenders in Clark County. There are eight homeless Level 3 offenders registered in Clark County. See how each state handles GPS monitoring of sex offenders »

Sanford was living in a vacant home near an overgrown field where Licy’s parents sometimes played paintball. The field, littered with trash, has “No Dumping” signs along its periphery and is buttressed by fast-food joints, Chinese restaurants and strip malls. The air smells of frying oil.

Resident Nick Holden, whose daughter was Licy’s friend, told The Oregonian newspaper that the field was a popular shortcut — “a kid highway.” Though it wasn’t necessarily deemed unsafe, he told the paper, “you ask the kids to not go alone.”

Licy was told just that, but on February 21, as she and a friend returned from Wal-Mart, Licy said she wanted to cut through the field. Her friend declined, Hager said.

Police: Sanford unsure of his weapon

Sanford told detectives he met Licy near the vacant homes and walked with her to an isolated area of the field, police said. There, he attempted to have intercourse with her “but wasn’t able to complete the sexual act,” according to the probable cause affidavit filed in court. Watch Sanford’s mother say she wishes he was dead »

“After she giggled at him,” continued the affidavit, “he was overcome with a violent rage and hit her with something in the back. She turned to face him and he kept hitting her, knocking her to the ground.”

Sanford told police he wasn’t sure what he hit her with — maybe a stick, knife or beer bottle, the affidavit said. The 180-pound Sanford left the body but came back later and moved Licy, a scant 100 pounds, to an area where her stepfather found her early the next morning, according to the affidavit.

“His GPS unit verified that he was in the area and his movements,” the affidavit said.

Attempts by CNN to reach Licy’s mother and stepfather, Maranda and Jason Hannah, were unsuccessful.

On the day before his 20th birthday in 1998, Sanford was placed on probation. According to a sheriff’s office report, a group of minors, ages 8 to 11, reported that Sanford had offered them money for oral sex. The youngsters fled, but Sanford approached them again in a sparsely wooded area of the playground, asking them if they wanted to go home with him to “play house,” the report said.

Sanford violated his probation three times between November 2006 and November 2008, the DOC said. When he was released in January, he was required to check in daily with a probation officer, which he did the day before Licy’s murder and the day after her body was found.

Technology, offenders misunderstood

Experts say GPS can create a false sense of security because its capabilities are overestimated. Jill Levenson, an associate professor of human sciences at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Florida, said many people believe it is “some magic bullet or panacea that prevents crimes.”

Levenson also concurs with other experts who say the technology is used too sweepingly. Twenty-seven states have some mandatory requirement that the devices be used on sex offenders, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Only six states have no specific provisions for such monitoring. See data »

Most sex offenders are neither violent nor pedophiles, and they re-offend in about one of 20 cases, said Levenson, who studies sex crime policy.

Because the media focus on the most sensational crimes, politicians often focus their energies on combating the violent incidents rather than the more common occurrences, such as people being sexually assaulted by those they know, she said.

UIC’s Ibarra called it a “knee-jerk reaction” by lawmakers. He said he notices that “legislators often propose this kind of [GPS] requirement in the aftermath of some notorious act.”

Added Oxford’s Mayo-Wilson, “[GPS] could be used effectively to help shape behavior, but it’s being used too bluntly.”

GPS is more likely to work with low-level offenders while the technology’s deterrent effect on the most dangerous perpetrators is limited, Levenson said.

“[GPS] is not necessarily going to deter people from having sexually deviant intentions,” she said. “Many crimes are more impulsive and opportunistic, and that level of thinking may not go into it.”

Homelessness itself poses problems among sex offenders because unstable living conditions can increase recidivism, Levenson said. Many states have enacted laws limiting where sex offenders can live, forcing more offenders to the streets.

According to a 2007 report by the Council of State Governments, 29 states have residency restrictions for sex offenders. Washington, which the DOC says is home to about 300 homeless sex offenders, forbids them from living within 880 feet of a school or daycare.

An example of residency restrictions exacerbating the problem is in California, said Robert Coombs of the California Coalition Against Sexual Assault. Since 2007, when California implemented its version of Jessica’s Law — which bars registered sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of a school, park or places where children congregate — homelessness among paroled sex offenders spiked 800 percent, Coombs said.

In large metro areas like Los Angeles and San Francisco, “the concentration of schools and parks is so high, the entire jurisdiction becomes largely off limits for housing,” Coombs said.

The Justice Department did not respond to repeated requests to discuss the number of homeless sex offenders in the nation, but in California there are about 65,000 registered sex offenders, of which 3,267 are homeless, according to California’s Sex Offender Management Board.

It’s not only costly and unfeasible to monitor sex offenders, but allowing them to remain homeless increases their stress levels and instability, Coombs said. It makes for a “really dangerous cocktail when it comes to public safety,” he said.

Connecticut reviews GPS policy

Bill Carbone, executive director of the Court Support Services Division of Connecticut’s Judicial Branch, said the state recently reviewed its use of GPS.

Connecticut, which monitors more than 2,000 offenders, revamped its GPS monitoring after acknowledging the technology had its shortcomings, including error messages, lost signals and susceptibility to manipulation, Carbone said.

Coombs and Carbone also note that charging the devices can be problematic when the offender has no home.

“To some extent, it’s been oversold and misunderstood,” Carbone said. “I think it is a tool — not the sole tool — needed for proper supervision of offenders.”

Hager said she is pleased authorities were able to use Sanford’s GPS bracelet to make a swift arrest in her niece’s slaying, but it makes her angry that a homeless, convicted sex offender was allowed to hang out in a field frequented by children.

Licy’s family may never know why she cut through the field, and many other questions about her murder may remain unanswered. Hager said her niece’s accused killer should answer one of them.

“My daughters keep asking, ‘Why did the angels take Licy? If we pray hard enough will they bring her back?’ ” Hager said. “I just want to tell him, ‘You explain to my daughters what happened to their cousin.’ ”

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All About Vancouver (Washington) • Murder and Homicide

“Killing Girls” Documentary A Bleak Examination of Russia’s Abortion Epidemic

By Kathleen Gilbert

March 12, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A graphic documentary touted by its creator as “neither pro-life nor pro-choice” that depicts in intimate detail the disturbing reality of Russia’s abortion culture has been released.

“Killing Girls,” so named because all the women filmed eventually learned they carried baby girls, is a documentary seven years in the making that discusses the history of abortion in Russia and follows the induced abortions of several young Russian girls.  Only one girl in the documentary chooses to keep her daughter.

The film is set in the Center for Family Planning and Reproduction in St Petersburg, where babies are delivered on one floor and aborted on the floor above.

According ot the film, in Russia 80% of women have had at least one abortion.  Of these, the average woman has aborted between two and ten times throughout her life, and hundreds of thousands of Russian women each year are permanently stripped of their fertility due to their abortions.

Despite the prevalence of late-term abortion as the country’s “birth control” of choice, says the film, the public discussion about abortion is nearly silent.

“Killing Girls has also been my most difficult film to produce, mainly because it was next to impossible to find finance,” said Ireland-born producer and director David Kinsella.  “Everybody was telling me that I could not show this or that! … I was being suffocated by all the negative criticism towards our film. So I decided to make a film straight from my heart and soul and forget all the negative reactions.

“At times I felt totally helpless during the filming, the screaming from the hospital are tattooed on my soul, the sound of a baby crying during the abortion,” he said.  “I was totally shocked.”

The raw filmmaking spares few details except one: the abortions themselves.  Pro-life blogger Jill Stanek asked Kinsella why the film, which took such an unflinching glance at the circumstances of abortion, overlooked the actual deed.

Kinsella said that he had footage of abortions, but left it out of the final version.  “I think … I will have a much higher success rate with the normal public by not showing scary images,” he told Stanek.  “People, especially women, just would turn off.”

Kinsella said there were already “a number of countries” that have asked to use the film in sex education.

Anna Sirota, script writer and narrator of “Killing Girls,” said she too was shocked “not just because this was so painful and cruel, but also because I could not understand how easy it is to give and to take lives, how mechanical the whole abortion process looks.”

Sirota has given birth to one daughter and had four abortions.

“The project started to become an obsession. Maybe I was trying ‘to excuse’ away my sins… I still have no answers,” she said.

To view the trailer (WARNING: The trailer contains very graphic nudity and is not suitable for young audiences): http://www.killinggirlsmovie.com/trailer/

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University Police Officer Sues over Suspension for Refusing to Arrest Christian Protesters

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Military Zara groomed to perfection for the Gold Rush on Queen’s big day

By Deborah Arthurs
Last updated at 6:07 PM on 13th March 2009

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Zara Phillips enjoyed her third day at the Cheltenham Festival today looking sleek and groomed – but this time, she had her family in tow.

Zara was joined by the Queen and Princess Anne, who had travelled to the Gloucestershire race course – the first time the Queen has come to the meet in 50 years – to cheer on Her Majesty’s horse, Barbers Shop.

To the fear of bookmakers who said that Chelthenham had been ‘a bloodbath’, the Queen’s horse was predicted to attract £20m of bets from Royal enthusiasts, with one anonymous big spender even laying down £2,000.

Zara Phillips went for a military look, in a buttoned up, funnel-neck coat and knee-length boots accessorised with a neat beret and black gloves

But despite the gold rush, the bookies won out in the end as the Queen’s horse was placed just seventh.

In spite of her disappointment, the Queen managed to look as stylish as ever in a bespoke claret-toned dress made by her in-house tailors.

As befits her trademark style, she added a hat in an identical hue, topped off with a rose corsage, and her accessories were traditional: a set of three-string pearls and a rose brooch that echoed the flower in her hat.

All bets are off: Left, all smiles as the Queen waits for a race to begin… then right, despair as Her Majesty appears to have backed the wrong horse

Proving she has inherited her grandmother’s strong sense of fashion – and that she too has got race day chic nailed – Zara turned out in a chic cream-coloured wool military coat with high funnel neck, paired with chic black accessories.

More…

• A well-shod Zara Phillips wins the style race at Cheltenham in Gwen Stefani’s stiletto shoes

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Spot the Queen: Her Majesty, dressed in burgundy in the centre of the photograph, walks to the paddock to see her horse, surrounded by a wall of security

As is traditional on Gold Cup day, Zara, like the Queen, wore a hat, but hers was a  smart black beret by milliner Stephen Jones – Sarah Brown’s favourite hatmaker – and she swopped yesterday’s stilettos for a pair of knee-high boots with a much more manageable chunky wooden heel.

Over the past four days of the Festival, Zara has showed she’s a clear front runner in the fashion stakes.

Two days ago she paired her spike stilettos from Gwen Stefani’s range, L.A.M.B, the red trim of which she set off with a red Mulberry bag and navy coat.

And on day one of the meet, she channelled her inner Sloane Ranger, wearing a brown trilby with matching brown shawl and pony-skin bag.

Jockey Ruby Walsh riding Kauto Star, the winning horse from the Cheltenham

South African men are ‘raping women to cure them of being lesbians’

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 11:08 AM on 13th March 2009

Lesbians living in South Africa are being raped by men who believe it will ‘cure’  them of their sexual orientation, a report has revealed.

Women are reporting a rising tide of brutal homophobic attacks and murders and the widespread use of ‘corrective’  rape as a form of punishment.

The report, commissioned by international NGO ActionAid, called for South Africa’s criminal justice system to recognise the rapes as hate crimes as police are reportedly failing to take action over the spiralling violence.

Horrific crimes against lesbians in South Africa are reportedly going unrecognised by the state and unpunished by the legal system

The extent of the brutality became clear when Eudy Simelane, former star of South Africa’s national female football squad, became one of the victims last April.

Simelane, one of the first women to live openly as a lesbian and an equality rights campaigner, was gang-raped and beaten before being stabbed to death 25 times in the face, chest and legs.

Eudy Simelane died after being gang-raped, beaten and stabbed 25 times

Triangle, a gay rights organisation, said it deals with up to 10 new cases of ‘corrective rape’ every week.

Support groups claim an increasingly macho political environment led to inaction over attacks.

A statement released by South Africa’s national prosecuting authority said: ‘While hate crimes – especially of a sexual nature – are rife, it is not something that the South African government has prioritised as a specific project.’

Human rights and equality campaigners are hoping the reaction to Simelane’s death and the trial of the three men accused of her rape and murder will help put an end to the attacks.

Laura Turquet, ActionAid’s women’s rights coordinator, said: ‘So-called  “corrective” rape is yet another grotesque manifestation of violence against  women, the most widespread human rights violation in the world today.

‘These  crimes continue unabated and with impunity, while governments simply turn a  blind eye.’

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