Six In The Morning

Child abuse increased as economy crashed, study show
Poverty, stress lead to harsher parenting and abuse, researchers say
By Frederik Joelving
As the U.S. economy began to tank, the number of abused kids landing in the hospital with severe brain injuries spiked, a new study shows.
Anecdotes linking child abuse to the recession have surfaced before, but there had been no hard data to back the connection until now.
“It’s definitely disturbing,” said Elizabeth Gershoff, a psychologist who studies parenting but was not involved in the study.
Although there is no proof that financial hardship itself is causing the uptick in abuse, earlier research has tied parental stress to child maltreatment.

Tensions rise at Dale Farm

irishtimes.com Monday, September 19, 2011,
Protests are continuing at a Traveller settlement at Dale Farm in Essex today as bailiffs prepared to evict hundreds of families.

Some Travellers went to Mass in the Our Lady of Good Counsel Catholic Church in nearby Wickford, while some took away valuables for safe-keeping.

A few even went for sunbed sessions. Each had their way of counting down the hours before today’s evictions from Dale Farm.

Tensions are rising at the Essex camp, where several hundred Travellers are threatened with removal from 8am today by Basildon council bailiffs, following a 10-year planning battle over the Travellers’ erection of the camp, partly on protected green-belt lands.

Conquering China one viral video at a time

Tara Bahrampour
September 19, 2011
A young Chinese woman wanted to know: What is the English word for that gunky yellowish stuff in the corner of her eyes when she wakes up in the morning?

Jessica Beinecke, 24, host of an online travel video program aimed at young Chinese viewers, responded with a humorous segment for her show, explaining in fluent Mandarin and exaggerated gestures all the icky stuff that comes from the face.

The segment, called Yucky Gunk, went viral, garnering nearly 1.5 million hits.
And suddenly a petite blond, who is not Chinese and began studying the language only five years ago, became an iconic translator of American slang for pop-culture-hungry Chinese fans.

Has Africa lost Libya?

KNOX CHITIYO Sep 19 2011
But the Libyan uprising, while toppling the old order, has also become an ugly race war. The rebels were angry that black African mercenaries were hired to buttress the old regime -- even though most of them were actually migrant workers or indigenous black Libyan soldiers. And a misperception has taken hold of all black Africans being mercenaries which has led to the persecution of African immigrants and black Libyans.

Human Rights Watch and the African Union have called for an end to brutal reprisals, including torture, mass killings and arbitrary arrest. Many attacks seem premeditated. This has led to the question: can Libya still be seen as an "African" country?

Death penalty: Top 5 countries to execute the most people
According to Amnesty International’s annual Death Sentences and Executions report, at least 527 people were executed in 23 countries in 2010, plus thousands in China. The number of people executed worldwide since 2007 is more than 2,500. Here are the five countries registering the most executions since 2007:
Geoff Johnson, Correspondent
5. Pakistan

Pakistan made the Top 5 despite a moratorium on executions imposed by the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party that prevented the government from executing anyone in 2009 or 2010. In 2007, 135 people were executed and 36 were in 2008.

Despite the moratorium on executions, Pakistan continued to sentence people to death – 276 in 2009 and 365 in 2010 – and thousands of people remain on death row from previous sentences, as noted by Monitor correspondent Issam Ahmed

Colombian mountain cyclists try to pedal out of poverty toward glory in Europe

By Juan Forero, Monday, September 19
DUITAMA, Colombia — In the Andean mountains of central Colombia, where life’s options range from potato farming to herding goats, boys like Johan Cardenas dream of cycling to glory in the French Alps and Pyrenees.

They ride at dawn’s first light for 30 or 40 miles, or often 70, much of it up narrow mountain passes. Then they go again the next day, and the day after, with one goal in mind: to someday be good enough to compete in the great bicycle races of Europe.