Two a penny

Get other Biography hereThis is the true story of Latifa Ali betrayed by her mother and left prisoner to her father in Kurdistan northern Iraq. She has no allies no liberty as a Muslim woman and no access to an embassy. As the war on terror rages around her Latifa is at war with her culture and customs. Imprisoned abused and violated her efforts to escape Iraq fail and her impending forced marriage could end in her death by the ancient custom of honor killing. She has to get out. When the US military occupies Kurdistan she has a chance to break free. Comments (0)

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AFP – A French teenager shot and killed his parents and twin brothers, apparently while they were asleep in their home on the island of Corsica, police said Thursday.

The 16-year-old boy was arrested after he told a friend who then alerted police about the quadruple homicide.

Investigators said they had yet to establish a motive for the crime.

The teenager used his father’s shotgun to kill both his parents, aged 43 and 45, and 10-year-old brothers at the house in the town of Albitreccia in southern Corsica on Wednesday.

The teenager did provide investigators with information allowing them to recover the gun that belonged to his father.

He has not given any explanation, he is tired and in shock, said police colonel Hubert Deininger.

Deininger noted he had no criminal record, lived with his parents, in an average family.

Investigators were looking at the teenager’s psychological profile. .

The boy turned up with a relative at a police station in the early hours on Thursday after apparently wandering the streets of the Porticcio area, meeting several people including a friend to whom he confessed, said deputy prosecutor Valerie Tavernier.

Corsica – murder

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A trial has collapsed after a 14-year-old girl admitted she told a series of lies, including a story she made up about her father selling her for a sex attack, a court was told today.

Her 37-year-old father and 33-year-old mother, who both have name suppression, pleaded guilty to their amended charges, which were read out in court before the jury was discharged.

Between them, they now face a neglect charge and four of assault.

They are charged with cruelty to four of their eldest children, neglecting them in a manner likely to cause them unnecessary suffering and failing to provide them with an adequate home environment with regard to hygiene and clean housing.

They have eight children.

This charge related to events between January 1, 2005, and September 5, 2007.

The mother’s amended charge included failing to act to deter or prevent the children from being hit by their father.

The man is also charged with assaulting his then 12-year-old daughter with repeated blows with a broom and punches to the stomach. Both charges relate to events between July 1, 2007, and September 5, 2007.

He is charged with assaulting his son by punching him to the stomach.

The woman was remanded on bail and the man was remanded in custody until sentencing on September 17.

He is also charged with assaulting two of his children between January 1, 2006, and June 30, 2007.

Yesterday, the girl told the court that a sexual assault arranged by her father for $40 was all lies to get him in trouble.

Their daughter, who has name suppression, was the first of five children who gave evidence at the High Court at Auckland via CCTV from an adjacent room.

During her police interview in September 2007, the girl said she saw her father talking to three men at McDonald’s in Manukau.

During her police interview in September 2007, the girl said she saw her father talking to three men at McDonald’s in Manukau.

The girl admitted she told a series of lies in her interview.

But later during cross-examination by Paul Borich, defending her father, she said the whole incident was not true. Did you do some damage to the toilets?” Mr Borich asked her.

“Yesterday you broke the camera in the interview room and took off out the door because you didn’t want to watch the police interview again.

She said she told lies about her father snorting “white stuff” off the table.

“Yes”, she said.

The girl replied that she did not know, and she had just said it was “white stuff”.

“Did you want the interviewer to think it was P?”, Paul Borich, defending her father, asked. The girl said she lied about that and her mother did not drink alcohol.

Jo Scott, defending the girl’s mother, asked her about what she’d said in the interview about her mother drinking.

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Shocked residents of a Lower Hutt boarding house found the body of a newborn baby in a shoe box in the backyard, a court file reveals.

Ambulance officer Ross Weddell confirmed the icy-cold baby was dead after visibly shaken men pointed out the box in long grass behind the house in June 2007.

“At this stage I patted the top of the baby’s head and said, ‘Sorry’ and covered it back up,” Mr Weddell told police. “The feet were really small and the thought crossed my mind it could have been a doll,” he said.

In depositions statements issued to The , one of the three men who found the baby told police he lifted up the corner of a towel and saw a small pair of legs. She is due to be sentenced in the High Court at Wellington on July 31 and is now in a psychiatric hospital.

A 30-year-old woman – whose name has been suppressed – pleaded guilty to infanticide in June 2007. . The woman told police she put a pillow over the baby’s face and suffocated her when she cried. The baby may have been dead for several weeks when her body was found. She behaved as usual during pregnancy and did not take time off work around the time the girl was born.

Several people suspected the woman was pregnant, but she denied she was having a baby and concealed the birth. Jeans that had been tight were suddenly loose.

A co-worker said she noticed the woman lost a lot of weight over one weekend.

The woman has three other children – two live with their father’s parents and one was given up for adoption.

The woman has three other children – two live with their father’s parents and one was given up for adoption

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AFP – France’s minister for the digital economy on Wednesday announced on Facebook that she was pregnant, the second member of President Nicolas Sarkozy’s government to mix motherhood with politics.

Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet said she couldn’t hide it any longer.

My husband and I are very happy. .

Justice Minister Rachida Dati gave birth to daughter Zohra in January after sparking an intense guessing game in the French press about the identity of the father. I’m due this summer.

Kosciusko-Morizet, who is married and has a three-year-old son, was appointed minister for the development of the digital economy in January after serving as secretary of state for the environment.

Dati, who is stepping down to run in European parliament elections in June, has refused to divulge the father’s name.

French politics – Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet

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A woman who fatally shot her son then killed herself at a US shooting range said she was the anti-Christ and that she needed to save her son.

In rambling, teary audio recordings left for her boyfriend and authorities, as well as shorter suicide notes, Marie Moore, 44, apologised several times and said repeatedly: “I had to send my son to heaven and myself to hell.
“We have no clue.”
Authorities said Wednesday they still had no motive for the murder-suicide that shocked fellow customers and employees at the Shoot Straight range in Casselberry, about 16 kilometres north of Orlando, on Sunday.
The gun range’s security video shows 20-year-old Mitchell Moore taking aim at a target in a booth when his mother walks up behind him and points a gun at the back of his head. I don’t even want to begin to speculate,” said Deputy Chief Bill McNeil of the Casselberry Police Department, Florida.
The gun used was rented at the range. In the next frame, the son is seen falling to the ground and a nearby patron appears to alert others as he points to the unseen carnage. “They seem to be getting along fine,” one of the responding officers said.
According to a police report, earlier footage from the surveillance video shows the mother and son taking turns shooting and talking with other customers in the adjacent lane. Marie Moore was still alive when officers arrived at the range but later died at a hospital.
The son died at the scene.
Marie Moore refers to the incident in records she left for police and Shoot Straight, saying she spent a year in and out of a “mental home” but insisted: “I’m not sick.
Mitchell’s father, Charles Moore, told police that Marie Moore had a history of mental illness and had previously attempted suicide and been involuntarily committed to a mental hospital in 2002 under the state’s Baker Act.
“I’m sorry to do this in your place of business, but I had to save my son,” one message said.” Family members found the audio tapes and three suicide notes late Monday and gave them to police. I’m a fallen angel. “God made me a queen and I failed.”
Moore said she could have killed only herself but felt she had to “save” her son and do it in a public way so the world could also be saved. He turned me into the anti-Christ.”
Larry Anderson, a manager at Shoot Straight, said it’s unclear whether the Moores had been to the range before, but they weren’t regular customers. “Hopefully when I die, there will 1000 years of peace. But it has no way to verify the information. . According to the police report, Moore’s son lived in an apartment with his girlfriend and was due to have dinner with his father the day he died. According to the police report, Moore’s son lived in an apartment with his girlfriend and was due to have dinner with his father the day he died.
– AP

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Insect bites sting ACC for millions

– Sunday, 01 March 2009

Mozzies are costing taxpayers money.

BITES AND stings from mosquitoes, bees and other creepy crawlies have cost taxpayers more than $11 million over the past four years, as Kiwis troop to their doctors suffering from allergic reactions, infections and rashes.
Victims can claim compensation from ACC if the symptoms from a bite or sting are bad enough to be deemed an injury. And payments are on the rise. They also cover hospital treatment, often necessary if the area becomes seriously infected. The payments cover everything from doctor's appointments to antihistamine tablets, antibiotics and ointments, and adrenalin injections for the severely allergic. That's more than double the $1,496,957 it paid in the year up to June 2004. In the year to June 2008, ACC paid out $3,302,523 in insect bite claims.85m. The total over the four years from 2004 was $11. Bites from fleas, ticks and flies racked up almost $50,000 last year, while bedbugs were the least costly, with just five claims totalling $184 last year.
The stingers bees, bumble bees and wasps top the payout lists, with spiders second and mosquitoes third.
Auckland GP Jonathan Fox, head of the Royal New Zealand College of GPs, said while most people won't go to the doctor with an "ordinary" bite, some need treatment for allergies. Another $2m in claims were attributed to "unspecified" creatures. I have seen some really unpleasant infected legs, and things like that, from infected insect bites. "But probably the most common thing we see is infection.
"If untreated, infection can be quite debilitating."
Any kind of bite or sting anything that breaks the skin can lead to cellulitis and other serious skin infections, said Fox. [The rise in ACC payments] may be a reflection of that that families have been taking children with infected insect bites to the doctor more often, knowing it's going to be covered by ACC. In areas such as South Auckland there have been major campaigns to try and cut down on skin infections. ."
ACC spokeswoman Stephanie Julian thought the increase could be due to a computerised system, and public awareness.

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‘Clip-on’ theatres to boost surgery

By REBECCA PALMER Saturday, 28 February 2009

Two "clip-on" theatres will be used to boost the number of operations carried out at Hutt Hospital until its expansion is finished.
The operating theatres, being made off-site, will be erected next to the day surgery unit on the first floor of the emergency department and theatre block by October. That expansion will double the number of permanent operating theatres from four to eight, increase the size of the emergency department and add a new intensive care unit.
They will be used until 2011, when Hutt Valley District Health Board's $82 million revamp is due to be complete. "Without them, we would have no hope of meeting the new Government's requirements for increased elective surgery.
Acting chief executive Michael Hundleby said the two temporary theatres were needed to provide extra space until then. It would be used for day surgery. .5 million, including more than $1 million worth of medical equipment that would be transferred to the permanent operating theatres once they had been built.
It would cost about $2. Because most of the construction would take place off-site, there would be "minimal disruption" to the hospital and its neighbours, Mr Hundleby said.
The temporary theatres would then be removed and sold. Last year its staff performed 8092 operations, of which 3954 were elective (non-urgent) the most procedures it had ever done.
The hospital had been designed to care for about 25,000 people a year but was now coping with more than 40,000.
Mr Hundleby said that, for the past few years, the district health board had been using the national mobile surgical bus and private hospitals to supplement its operating theatres. The board expects to perform even more surgery this year and for demand to continue increasing."
Health Minister Tony Ryall said this week that he planned to talk to both Hutt Valley and Capital and Coast district health boards about the possibility of an elective surgery "super-centre" for the Greater Wellington region. "But both these options have become increasingly hard to access.
Mr Hundleby said that, while Hutt Hospital's expansion would double its number of operating theatres, it was already time to start planning beyond that.
Three Auckland health boards have already put together a proposal for extra operating theatres there.
A Health Ministry report made public this week says the country needs 26 extra operating theatres by 2026, in order to meet surgery targets and increased patient numbers.
Hutt Valley DHB was keen to work with other health boards on a proposal for another four theatres for the Greater Wellington region, he said.

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AFP – France’s justice minister Rachida Dati gave birth to a baby girl in Paris late Friday, a government source said. .

Her appointment by President Nicolas Sarkozy in May 2007 made her the first politician of north African origin to hold a senior French government post.

The identity of the father has remained the subject of much behind-the-scenes guessing in France, where Dati has become a political celebrity.

A host of magazine covers celebrated her against-the-odds success story as the second of 12 children born to a Moroccan labourer and illiterate Algerian mother, hailing her as the new face of France.

Dati has refused to be drawn on the matter, telling reporters in September that she had a complicated private life and would keep the father’s name a secret.

Dati, who had an arranged marriage annulled in her youth, said it was fundamental for her to have a child.

But since then a string of aides resigned over her management style, critics have accused her of ramming through reforms. If not I will be deeply sad, but I will put a coat of lipstick on it, and carry the burden on my own, she said on announcing the pregnancy.

If it is consolidated, I will be happy and feel as if I have completed the circle.

Three French women ministers have had children in the job before, including Sarkozy’s defeated rival for the presidency Segolene Royal, when she was environment minister in the 1990s.

French politics – Rachida Dati

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Erebus victims offer support

and Saturday, 29 November 2008

Somefamilies of those killed in the Erebus tragedy are offering to help the loved ones of those involved in Air New Zealand's crash in France.
The plane crash off the coast of France yesterday happened on the 29th anniversary of a DC-10 plane crashing into Antarctica's Mt Erebus, killing all 257 people on board.
Kathryn Carter, the eldest daughter of the Erebus DC-10 captain Jim Collins, said her family had contacted the New Zealand Air Line Pilots' Association to offer their sympathy and assistance to the families affected. Our heartfelt thoughts go with them at this time.
"These aircraft accidents are terrible experiences for anyone to be involved with. She said the family often visited the grave of their father on the anniversary, but last night they shared a meal together."
The architect and mother of four was aged 15 – and her sisters were 14, 9 and 6 – when their father was killed.
"We'll think particularly of the bereaved families right now and the hell they are going through," widow Maria Collins said. "Probably the [families'] goodbyes were as trivial as ours.
It was the final words she said to her husband, Captain Collins, that lingered."
In 1979 blue cod was hard to get and a shop next to Christchurch Airport, which Mr Collins should have passed by on his return to Auckland, sold a fresh supply. . It's like everybody else who leaves home for a day, you don't think it's the last time.
"It was as mundane as that."
Mrs Carter said the family wanted to extend its support to those affected."
Mrs Carter said the family wanted to extend its support to those affected.
"I was having a shave and I just stopped.
He made contact with the Erebus family members, including the Collins family, after the news. It's quite an emotional day anyway and when I heard that I just couldn't believe it," he said. It's hard to describe how I feel really, that on this very day there's another one.
"I've been quite tearful.
Gwen Stevenson, who lost her husband of 23 years, Tony Stevenson, in the 1979 accident said she had a "strange" feeling when she heard the news of the crash in France yesterday morning. It's a terrible thing to happen and I know what they must be going through. I just feel for the families so much."

. It's worse when everyone in the world knows about the death [of your loved one]