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THE DAILY EXPRESS
THUGS TO BE DUMPED IN COUNTRYSIDE by Tom Fullerton
Thursday September 13,2007
YOUNG thugs should be dumped in the countryside and left to fend for themselves, a sheriff said yesterday.
Sheriff Robert McCreadie said stranding hooligans in remote places, miles from civilisation, would be a good test of their ability to find their way back to society: “Sometimes I think the best solution for young offenders would be to put them in a remote place with a rucksack on their back and see how they get on with coming back,” he told Perth Sheriff Court.
The sheriff, who said his test would help demonstrate what kind of “responsibility they can show” by looking after themselves, made his comments after hearing how two 16-year-olds attacked a man after leaving a youth club.
Promising boxer Ryan Warden and Jak Wood, now 17, attacked Darren Cuthbert, 20, and repeatedly punched him on the head and body.
Both admitted assaulting Mr Cuthbert in Kinross last December 29 after he confronted Wood for urinating in his garden.
Fiscal depute Vicki Bell said: “They had been at a youth club in a community centre. The complainer arrived home and saw Wood urinating in his garden.
“He told Wood to stop and the accused’s reply was ’give me 10 minutes’ and then he left. The complainer ignored the comment and went into his house.
“A short time later he heard the doorbell ring. He opened the door and saw Wood standing at the gate to the garden.
“He approached to enquire what he wanted. Warden pulled up in a car and got out. Wood and Warden were chased a short distance by the complainer.”
Miss Bell told the court the two then turned to confront Mr Cuthbert and after arguing with him they began raining blows down on him.
Sheriff McCreadie asked solicitor David Holmes what kind of people his clients were going to turn out to be.
He asked of Warden: “Where is this gentleman heading? What kind of person is he? Is he somebody who lounges around and never finds much to do?”
Mr Holmes replied: “He is someone who has trained hard and striven to do well at his sport, boxing. He is somebody who has the potential to do well, but is still very young and needs guidance.”
Sheriff McCreadie told Warden: “From what I have read and heard I have some concern about where you are heading.
“You should certainly never ever assault another human being. In certain circumstances you could kill another human being by doing what you did.
“You box and know the precautions you take to safeguard yourself when you are boxing. You should have the same regard to other people.”
He deferred sentence on Wood and Warden, Green Road, both of Kinross, until December 11 for them to be of good behaviour:
“Consider between now and then what kind of person you want to be,” he said: “People who continue to get into the kind of trouble you get into frequently end up in jail.”
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NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
Ancient Peru Torture Deaths: Sacrifices or War Crimes? By Ben Harder
for National Geographic News
April 29, 2002
Forensic anthropologist John Verano of TulaneUniversity in New Orleans has been investigating a series of grisly executions in the arid valleys of lowland Peru. Evidence from the skeletal remains shows that the victims, who lived during the Moche civilization nearly two thousand years ago, suffered shockingly brutal deaths.
Some were apparently skinned alive. Others were drained of blood, decapitated, or bound tightly and left to be eaten by vultures. But who were they, and why were they killed so viciously?
The motives behind the brutal acts remain obscure. But thanks to painstaking analysis by Verano and his colleagues, scientists are moving closer to solving the mystery.
National Geographic filmmakers follow Verano's work in an EXPLORER program, "Moche Murder Mysteries," which airs in the United States, May 4 [see details below].
When the graves at a Moche temple complex in northern Peru were uncovered, the human remains showed many clear marks of violence. Various theories arose to explain it. One proposes that the Moche sacrificed some of their own people to appease the gods and improve the fertility of their land. Another suggests that the victims were enemies of the Moche executioners—losers of fierce power struggles between competing prehistoric city-states—who were ritually murdered.
Verano's team employs cutting-edge forensic science to carefully decipher the many clues left behind.
So far, the scientists have unearthed more than 100 skeletons buried at different sites between about A.D. 150 and A.D. 650. "This is a tradition that went on for hundreds of years," Verano said.
Culture of Bloodshed
The grim events revealed by the archaeological findings have long been familiar to scholars from finely rendered pottery and murals of the Moche people. Scenes embellished with abundant bloodshed show victims being humiliated, abused, and executed.
Some people have interpreted these frightening scenes as exaggerated fictions concocted by the Moche to scare enemies. The recent analysis, however, suggests that the events depicted were horrifyingly real and not figments of artists' imagination.
The revelation of gruesome forms of torture is puzzling in part because the Moche developed a vibrant and highly advanced culture. These pre-Inca Peruvians were renowned builders, artists, and warriors. Their technological advances included, for example, techniques of irrigation that made their valleys even more productive than the same land is today, according to Verano.
Combat was a prevalent theme of Moche art. The detailed scenes on pottery and murals form what UCLA anthropologist Christopher B. Donnan calls a rich "warrior narrative."
Donnan has been studying Moche art for 35 years, and his interpretation of the disturbing executions is that they were part of ritual combat among Moche elites. "From all the artistic depictions we have, these are Moche against Moche, not warfare with some other group," he said.
In the Moche scenes of battle, each combatant wore a loincloth, patterned tunic, and conical helmet, and hung a trapezoidal metal flap from the back of his belt. Along with their other accessories, the warriors' elaborate dress suggests that they brought both wealth and pageantry to combat, which Donnan likens to medieval jousts.
Various panels show warriors squaring off, locked in combat, or in the aftermath of battle.
"A few [panels] show a warrior triumphing over another, but not striking the loser on the ground"—a sign that battles were not fought to the death, said Donnan.
Instead, the art suggests that a victorious warrior took the weapons and belongings of the loser, tied a rope around the vanquished fighter's neck, and led him away naked.
The captives were subsequently sacrificed in a bloody ritual, and their bodies—or parts of them—scattered.
"We have scenes of the killer of the captive and priests and priestesses drinking his blood," Donnan said. Other scenes show the loser's dismembered limbs being used as trophies.
The significance of this practice isn't known, but it may have been part of a ritual associated with agricultural productivity. Even today, some people in the Andes associate the spilling of blood with the fertility of Earth, and staged—but not lethal—fights still occur in parts of the region.
War Crimes?
But why were the bodies of the losers so mutilated and cast aside in prehistoric times?
As a possible explanation, Donnan suggested said the suffering of the losers may have had a ritualistic meaning in Moche society much as the pain of Christ does in Christianity. "Christians don't think of the Crucifixion of Christ as being demeaning," he pointed out. "Rather, we're in awe about the suffering this individual went through."
Verano's latest finds, however, undermine the notion that these scenes were merely a part of ritual combat. Some of the recently unearthed skeletons, the researchers say, show marks indicating that the bones were stripped of flesh with even greater care than would have been characteristic of cannibalism.
Such practices of defleshing victims don't appear in Moche art, said Donnan. "This makes it extremely enigmatic," he said. "It's hard to fit it into the warrior narrative."
"These people were clearly denied proper burial," and were instead left in open pits to be preyed on by vultures and flies, Verano said. "They were desecrated. The closest analogy would be war crimes today."
He thinks the victims were war prisoners, not losers of ritual combat among the elite of a particular city. "They may be Moche," he said, "but from other valleys."
One clue is that some of their wounds had time to heal before they died, perhaps an indication that they were rounded up after battle and marched back to the city where they were ultimately killed.
Other clues also hint that the victims hailed from diferent regions. Variations in the shape of the victims' teeth also indicate that they were from different population groups.
By analyzing the chemical composition of the victims' hair, Verano and his colleagues determined that some of the dead had a diet rich in seafood, indicating that they lived along the coast, while others appeared to have lived at higher elevations.
Variations in the shape of the victims' teeth also indicate that they were from different population groups. Both those clues suggest that the victims hailed from different regions.
The victims were buried individually or in small groups, not in true mass graves. To Verano, this suggests that the victims represent "a few principal captives from each episode" of conflict between the city and its enemies.
Verano hopes that more evidence will help answer the questions that remain. So far, he said, "we've only poked around in certain areas. There may be other mass graves we haven't found yet."
While the reason for the ancient wars may be lost in the mists of time, the fierceness of the bloodshed is no longer in doubt.
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THE DAILY EXPRESS
MOBILE PHONES ‘ARE SAFE FOR TEN YEARS’ by Graham Hiscott – Consumer Editor
Thursday September 13,2007
SCIENTISTS have admitted that long-term mobile phone use could have serious health risks.
A £9million study published yesterday found no evidence of a link between short-term use and brain cancer.
But experts behind the research said it was too early to know the health consequences of using a handset for more than a decade.
A parallel has been drawn with smoking, which was initially considered safe and only later blamed for causing a cancer epidemic and other health problems.
The six-year investigation into mobile phones is the largest of its kind probing the health risks. It concluded there was no reason to believe that using a handset for less than 10 years posed a danger.
Mobile phone base stations and the Tetra signals used by the emergency services were also given a clean bill of health.
But there were fears about the effects of longer-term use. Researchers found a “very slight hint” of increased incidences of brain tumours among people who had used mobiles for more than 10 years.
“We cannot rule out the possibility at this stage that cancer could appear in a few years time,” said Professor Lawrie Challis, chairman of the Mobile Telecomm- unications and Health Research Programme (MTHR), which oversaw the study.
“There is no way we can do that, because the epidemiological evidence we have is not strong enough to rule it out and, second, because most cancers cannot be detected until 10 years after whatever caused them.”
A separate report yesterday by a team of international experts warned that daily exposure to electromagnetic fields given off by mobile phones, power lines and other electronic devices could be harmful.
Report co-author Dr David Carpenter, of Albany university, in New York, described the findings as a “wake-up call”. Brain tumour specialist Dr Lennart Hardell, who also contributed to the study, said: “The evidence for risks from prolonged cell phone and cordless phone use is quite strong when you look at people who have used these devices for 10 years or longer, and when they are used mainly on one side of the head.
“Brain tumours normally take a long time to develop, in the order of 15 to 20 years.”
Doubts also remain about the potential health risks for children. A report in 2005 warned children to avoid excessive mobile phone use because their thinner skulls make them prone to absorbing radiation.
Yet the MTHR study – partly funded by the mobile phone industry – failed to tackle this issue and it may be years before the results of a separate £6million study into the effects on children are known.
Liberal Democrat science spokes- man Dr Evan Harris said the latest findings were “good news for the public”.
He said: “The current precautionary approach – involving limited restrictions on mast siting relating to schools and advice about limiting use by young children – is reasonable and this research demonstrates that there is as yet no justification for a more restrictive approach.”
Yesterday’s MTHR report also ruled that signals from mobile phone and base stations were not to blame for a condition known as electrical hypersensitivity.
Symptoms include heightened tension, headaches, aching muscles and stomach cramps.
But a spokeswoman for campaign group Mast Sanity said: “We believe mobiles are harmful to health. Plenty of other studies have shown this. The programme has not got to the bottom of this, it is too close to industry.”
Prof Challis admitted the research was part-funded by the mobile phone industry but said that a “firewall” meant the study was independent.
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THE PRAVDA
Nail biters to be treated in a special treatment centre in the Netherlands
2007/08/13
The world's first treatment centre for nail biters is to open in the Netherlands next month.
Nail biters to be treated in a special treatment centre in the NetherlandsDirector of the new centre in Venlo, Alain-Raymond van Abbe of the Institute for Pathological Onychophagy (IPO) says he and his team have invented an aid to make nail-biting impossible.
"This is the first place ever to tackle this very serious problem," he explained. "We are expecting clients from all over the world."
He said initial trials had been almost 100 per cent successful and that people attending the centre could expect to be completely cured within four weeks.
"The treatment has been successful for 98 per cent of the first trial patients. Very few fall back into the habit," he said.
There are about 2 million people who bite their nails in the Netherlands, according to officials at the centre.
Studies have shown that as many as 15 per cent of adults, 33 per cent of young children and 45 per cent of adolescents bite their nails.
The centre fits a special device to the hands that allow normal activities but prevent nail biting, and at the same time gives patients extensive therapy and counselling to get them to stop.
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THE DAILY EXPRESS
RUSSIA TESTS 'FATHER OF ALL BOMBS' by Julia White for dailystar.co.uk
Wednesday September 12,2007
RUSSIA issued another warning to the West last night by testing the world's biggest and most powerful non-nuclear bomb.
Military leaders claimed there was "no match in the world" for the vaccuum ordnance nicknamed the "father of all bombs".
In yet more Cold War-style posturing from the former Communist state, leaders said the explosive dropped from a heavy bomber was four times more powerful than its American counterpart and could wreak huge devastation.
And while it had no nuclear warhead, military chiefs said it matched uranium-primed weapons in its power.
Alexander Rukhsin, a deputy chief of the Russian military's General Staff, said: "The tests have shown that the new air-delivered ordnance is comparable to a nuclear weapon in its efficiency and capability."
He added the new bomb would allow the military to "protect the nation’s security and confront international terrorism in any situation and any region".
Tested at a secret site in the former SovietRepublic, the drop was broadcast on Channel One television.
Footage showed a Tupolev Tu-160 strategic bomber dropping the bomb over a testing ground. A large explosion followed before viewers saw what looked like a flattened multi-storeyed block of flats, surrounded by scorched soil and boulders.
The report showed the bomb dropping by parachute from a Tu-160 strategic bomber and exploding in a massive fireball. It featured the debris of apartment buildings and armored vehicles at a testing range, as well as ground burnt by a massive explosion.