BBC investigating other allegations of sexual abuse

LONDON –- The head of the scandal-hit BBC said Tuesday that the broadcaster is investigating allegations of sexual abuse or harassment against several of its staff members, apart from recent revelations about a popular children’s show host who may have molested scores of young girls over decades.

Under pointed questioning by members of Parliament, Director General George Entwistle acknowledged that the British Broadcasting Corp.’s reputation and integrity have been badly undermined by the snowballing scandal over the late Jimmy Savile, the star presenter now suspected of having been a serial child molester.

“This is a gravely serious matter,” Entwistle said, “and one cannot look back at it with anything other than horror.”

He also said that a BBC news program’s probe into accusations against Savile should not have been shelved by a senior editor who considered the story too weak. That editor was forced to step down Monday pending the outcome of an independent inquiry into why the investigation was called off weeks before the segment was to be broadcast late last year, around the same time that the BBC aired glowing tributes to Savile, who had died a couple of months before.

Mexico's most powerful woman faults working mothers

 

MEXICO CITY -- She may be Mexico's most powerful woman, but she doesn't seem too keen on power for women.

Elba Esther Gordillo, the much-feared head of Mexico's gigantic teachers union, is blaming the abysmal state of education here on none other than working mothers.

In an "open letter to the public" covering two full pages of Mexico's leading Reforma newspaper, Gordillo seemed to rue the days decades ago when traditional family roles were clearly established (link in Spanish, registration required).

"A fact that was changed when women had to share responsibility for the family income, which didn't only contribute to the deterioration of the individual but also of society," Gordillo wrote.

"The abandonment of the mother in the rearing of children turned schools into daycare centers, gave teachers sole responsibility for education and emptied education of any substance," she added.

Gordillo went on to say that the void created by absent mothers working outside the home was filled with "the excessive consumption of junk TV" and similar distractions, which generally contributed to the demise of society's values.

Quite a lot to hang on working women, especially since most experts would blame Mexico's poor educational system on precisely the union that Gordillo lords over like a private fiefdom.

Gordillo, who favors expensive jewelry, designer clothes and tons of prime real estate, is the "president for life" of the union, which also formed a political party prone to backroom king-making deals and which generally refuses to open its bank accounts to public scrutiny. Thanks to the union's clout, teachers are allowed to bequeath their posts to descendants, and most teachers have flunked basic competency exams.

Outrage over Gordillo's comments was swift, intense and came from both the political left and right as well as women's groups.

"I read that and didn't know whether to laugh or cry," feminist columnist Rosaura Barahona wrote, noting that Gordillo apparently ignored the fact that many of the very teachers she represents are working moms (link in Spanish).

"It is very easy to blame women for everything bad that happens in the world today and for the poor education of the children," she continued. "But what about the fathers? The school? The media? The church? The government?"

If Gordillo needed a scapegoat, Barahona concluded, she should look elsewhere.

And that is exactly what many analysts said Gordillo appeared to be doing. She is under pressure on several fronts. There is a move afoot in the recently seated Congress that would force unions to be more democratic and "transparent," qualities that might erode her power. And the citizens group Mexicanos Primero has launched a concerted campaign to promote education and criticize Gordillo's handling of the teachers. One slogan is: More money for education, less for the union.

Gordillo on Thursday was opening a three-day convention of her union, the largest teachers group in Latin America. It was expected that members would endorse a slate of regional and local leaders primarily loyal to Gordillo.  The city of the convention had to be changed at the last minute because of reports that a group of dissident teachers who oppose Gordillo planned to picket the meeting.

Gordillo used the venue to argue that some of her recent comments had been "twisted" and that she really wasn't a misogynist.

But her critics remained adamant and revived a June television interview given by Gordillo's daughter, Monica Arriola, who was just elected to the Senate (link in Spanish). In it, Arriola said she was essentially raised by her grandmother because her mother, whom she sometimes went weeks without seeing, was too busy.

"It was difficult to see her," Arriola said, "because of her work."

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Photo: Teachers union boss Elba Esther Gordillo of Mexico, shown in 2006 in Mexico City. Credit: Dario Lopez-Mills / Associated Press

 

 

German government drafts measure to keep circumcision legal

BERLIN -- The German government finalized its draft of a measure Wednesday to protect circumcision after a local court threw the practice into a legal quagmire in June.

The bill would allow circumcision to be carried out as long as it is performed in accordance with medical standards, does not put the child’s health in jeopardy and parents are notified of potential risks. Trained practitioners can also perform circumcisions on boys up to 6 months old even if they aren’t doctors, guaranteeing that mohels, Jews trained to perform the procedure, can do so in accordance with Jewish law.

The draft legislation by Chancellor Angela Merkel's Cabinet should help remove the legal uncertainties around the practice for religious communities in Germany, said Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, who drew up the bill.

The measure came in response to a court ruling in the city of Cologne this summer that made circumcision illegal, saying it caused children bodily harm. The issue arose after a 4-year-old Muslim boy suffered complications from the practice.

Somali refugees increasingly endangered in Kenya camp, agencies say

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- The Dadaab refugee camp in northern Kenya is the biggest in the world, a sprawl of nearly half a million people, some of whom have lived there for about two decades.

Residents who fled famine and warfare in Somalia have now seen grandchildren born and raised in what was supposed to have been a temporary home. They have also seen predators and criminal groups flourish; and watched as recruiters lure bored and frustrated boys back to Somalia to serve in armed militias or pirate gangs.

Last year’s famine in southern Somalia saw Dadaab’s population swell by 160,000 to its present 465,000. As a result, Dadaab is running desperately short of funds for food and vital services, according to an appeal by eight aid agencies, including Oxfam and Save the Children.

The organizations warned that they face a $25-million shortfall for their humanitarian operations in the coming three months, putting 200,000 refugees at risk. From September, 50,000 refugees will have no water and sanitation facilities, according to the agencies, unless fresh funding arrives.

They also warned that 130,000 people could soon be without adequate shelter, living in flimsy plastic structures that deteriorate quickly in the harsh weather.

At the same time, they say, continuing to operate Dadaab as it has the past two decades is untenable. The camp was initially built as temporary housing for 90,000 people. Its massive population, almost all of whom are Somalis, survives on subsistence-level rations, with little hope of returning to Somalia or getting work in Kenya, and with few medical or educational services.

“Refugee camps are only temporary solutions and the situation is increasingly untenable. Funds are needed now to save lives, but we can’t keep pumping money in year after year while the camp keeps getting bigger. A change in approach is urgently needed. However, right now, the world has an obligation not to turn its back on Dadaab and the needs of the people there,” Nigel Tricks, head of Oxfam in Kenya, said in a statement.

A briefing paper on Dadaab released by the agencies Thursday reported there are two health units for 78,000 people and 70% of the camp’s 164,000 children do not go to school, making them vulnerable to militia recruiters.

Violence and insecurity is rife. Rapes of women and girls are common, and reports of sexual violences increased by 36% between February and May, but funding for protection of children and women has declined, according to the aid agencies.

A lack of security at the camp has also affected operations of the agencies, with several aid workers kidnapped from Dadaab.

Local attitudes toward the camp’s population range from indifference to hostility. Refugees compete with the local population for firewood, water and land.

Moreover, some Kenyans see the camp as a potential source of terrorists after a series of recent attacks in the capital, Nairobi, and the seaside town of Mombasa. Kenya is currently fighting a war against the Somali Islamist militia Al Shabaab.

Reluctant to attract more refugees from Somalia, the Kenyan government has resisted providing updated sewer systems, water, schools and clinics, according to Refugees International, an advocacy organization, in a report in December. 

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Photo: Saad Siyat, 2, struggles to take his last breath inside the Dadaab refugee camp, where he was brought malnourished and unconscious in this February 2009 photo.'Credit: Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times 

Former Congo warlord sentenced to 14 years over child soldiers

Former Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga was ordered to spend 14 years in prison Tuesday for enlisting children as soldiers, the first sentence handed down by the decade-old International Criminal Court.

The “vulnerability of children mean that they need to be afforded particular protection,” presiding judge Adrian Fulford said as Lubanga listened, grave-faced, to his fate.

Lubanga was convicted in March after a three-year trial that centered on enlisting children to fight during a civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo nearly a decade ago. Human rights groups have also said his forces committed rapes, torture and killings, accusations that were not put before the court.

Prosecutors had sought 30 years in prison for Lubanga. The court handed him a lesser sentence after weighing “the lack of any aggravating circumstances” and his cooperation with the court. Lubanga, who was seen in videos alongside child soldiers, did not mean to recruit children but “was aware that in the ordinary course of events this would occur,” Fulford said Tuesday.

Six years will be deducted from Lubanga's sentence to cover the time since he first surrendered to the court, aggravating critics who called the sentence too light.

"Lubanga will serve less time than the [court] has been open!" Northwestern University international law professor Eugene Kontorovich lamented on Twitter.

UNICEF: Mali chaos has left children to be recruited as soldiers

As West African leaders seek a green light to send forces into northern Mali, the United Nations child protection organization said at least 175 boys had been recruited as child soldiers in the region, prodded into fighting in the chaotic aftermath of a Tuareg rebellion.

Tuareg rebels equipped with weapons from Libya  declared their own state of Azawad in northern Mali this year.  Mali, unsettled by a military coup, has thus far been unable to stop them.

On the heels of the Tuareg advances, Islamic extremist groups took over Mali towns and imposed strict religious law, defaced and destroyed tombs and mosques, and reportedly sparred with the Tuareg, their onetime allies, ousting them from Timbuktu last week.

The Economic Community of West African States, a bloc of West African nations, has pressed to send regional troops into northern Mali to stabilize the turbulent region. The U.N. Security Council said Thursday that it wanted more information on those plans before it gave them its blessing.

With little access to northern Mali, UNICEF said it had only an incomplete picture of the violence and militarism affecting children. The agency said the shuttering of schools across the north had affected up to 300,000 children, leaving them at higher risk of being recruited or exploited.

UNICEF media relations chief Peter Smerdon said  that because its access to information was limited, the agency could not specify which armed groups had recruited children. Besides the child soldiers, the agency said there were also reports of children being maimed by explosives, raped and sexually abused.

Youth are also especially susceptible to malnutrition, which has spread across Mali during its lean season. More than 70,000 children have been treated for severe malnutrition this year, according to UNICEF, which has gotten barely a fifth of the funding it has sought to stem the hunger crisis in Mali. Locust swarms, left uncontrolled as Libya was riven by fighting between rival militias, threaten to worsen the problem.

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With dire South African schools, activists take to Twitter

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- Education activists tried protest marches. They camped outside South Africa's parliament. They even went to court to try to force government action in a country where some children study outside in deepest winter, thousands more learn in shoddy huts of mud and twig and the school year can nearly reach its halfway point without the government delivering textbooks.

On Thursday, they took to Twitter with the hashtag #Questions4Motshekga in the leadup to a news conference by the minister for basic education, Angie Motshekga. The hashtag rapidly became a trending topic here, as angry South Africans piled onboard.

"For how long will the poor pupils from Limpopo be taught under trees in this cold weather Minister?" asked one user, Karabo Mokoena.

"The dropout rate is increasing. What are [you] doing about it?" one South African, Julian Maake, wrote.

Another was even blunter: "How did you survive the [Cabinet] reshuffle?" Lethabo Phala asked.

Their impatience is understandable. In 2006, a landmark report on South African schools found that 80% of high schools were "dysfunctional" -- but little has changed since.

The performance of 12-year-old students in basic literacy and mathematics is dismal compared to neighboring African countries, according to Equal Education, a lobby group that took Motshekga to court in a bid to force improvements in school infrastructure.

Syrian children tortured, used as human shields, U.N. report finds

The Syrian military and armed militias loyal to President Bashar Assad have used children as young as 8 years old as human shields, a new United Nations report has found.

Children have also been tortured and killed by the Syrian army and its allies; whipped, beaten, subjected to sexual violence, burned with cigarettes and even given electrical shock. One former soldier told the U.N. he had been ordered to shoot “without distinction” during protests in the city of Tall Kalakh, even though children were there. Three girls roughly between the ages of 10 and 13 were killed, he said.

Though most of the reported abuses were carried out by the Syrian army and its allies, there are also credible allegations that the armed rebels fighting Bashar's forces have recruited children to fight, the U.N. report said.

The abuses were laid out as part of an annual U.N. report on children and armed conflict worldwide last year. However, the violations in Syria were so grave that the U.N. decided to include a string of more recent incidents in its report, including a March attack by government forces in which three teens were killed and three other youths were arrested for interrogation, one of them a 9-year-old girl.

Syria was added to the U.N. "list of shame" this year. “The world is keeping a detailed account of the violence committed against civilians in Syria and I am confident that these crimes will not go unpunished,” U.N. Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict Radhika Coomaraswamy said.

The fighting in Syria has resulted in more than 10,000 deaths, with those killed including rebels, civilians and government forces. The slaying of children, including a recent massacre that included at least 32 children in the township of Houla, has stepped up continued calls to stop the violence.

U.N. special envoy Kofi Annan lamented last week that a peace plan he brokered had not halted the violence, with both sides violating the truce. Heavy bombardment of the Syrian city of Homs and other towns occupied by rebels has alarmed the international body, whose secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, called the recent shelling a "dangerous intensification of armed violence."

The Local Coordination Committees, an opposition activist network, said that at least 40 people were killed Tuesday, including a baby less than 2 months old. Meanwhile, Syrian state media reported that armed terrorists -- the usual government term for the rebels -- kidnapped passengers on two buses Tuesday.

Outside a Homs building battered by shelling, a man asked angrily, "What is this? Nobody help us? Why?" The unnamed man was recorded in a video shared by the U.N. Tuesday. "We are people. Not animals."

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Photo: A Syrian boy stands Sunday next to the coffin of a man said to have been killed during clashes with government troops in Daraa in an image released by the Syrian opposition's media outlet. Credit: Shaam News Network / AFP/Getty Images

Parents renew calls for justice in Mexico daycare fire of 2009

MEXICO CITY -- Pink and baby blue flags representing the 49 victims of the 2009 daycare fire that spread grief across Mexico were held aloft by demonstrators during a solemn protest commemorating the third anniversary of the tragedy.

Parents marched from Mexico City's main plaza, or Zocalo, to the Angel of Independence monument Sunday, led by rows of small children pushing baby carriages in honor of the dead.

The June 5, 2009, fire at the ABC daycare center in the northwestern city of Hermosillo also left more than 70 toddlers and infants with serious burns. In the three years since, outraged and still-grieving parents have held emotional protests calling for justice for their children.

Correspondent Ken Ellingwood reported in The Times in July 2009 that the "incident and its aftermath reveal much about what is wrong with Mexico," and are widely seen as a low point under President Felipe Calderon.

"Impunity. Corruption. Lack of transparency. Aloof politicians who are most nimble when ducking blame. Bureaucracies that bury you in red tape," Ellingwood wrote, describing the tell-tale traits that leave many residents disenchanted.

Three years on, the owners of the ABC center and high-level public officials in the state of Sonora -- some with reported ties to First Lady Margarita Zavala -- remain free (link in Spanish). Suspicions remain that the fire may have been intentionally set among boxes of tax records at a state government-leased warehouse next door to the daycare center.

"We are still waiting for those truly responsible for the deaths of 49 children and more than 70 injured to be put in jail and behind bars," said Abraham Fraijo, whose daughter, Emilia, died. "They are enjoying total impunity."

Here's video of the demonstration as it passed on Madero Street in downtown Mexico City:

The protest also had a political tint during the current election season. Parents have expressed outrage that the former head of Mexico's social security institute, which oversees public contracts with private daycare providers, was included in the campaign of presidential candidate Josefina Vazquez Mota, who belongs to Calderon's conservative National Action Party, or PAN.

"Instead of punishing them, they are given prizes," Fraijo said.

On Monday, Vazquez Mota told students during an appearance at Ibero-American University that she would ask the former official, Juan Molinar Horcasitas, to "distance himself" from her campaign.

ABC parents planned another protest in Hermosillo on Tuesday.

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Photo: Parents of the ABC daycare center victims in Hermosillo, Sonora, along with small children, march Sunday in Mexico City to call for justice for the 49 victims of the June, 5, 2009, blaze. Credit: Daniel Hernandez / Los Angeles Times

20 children reportedly slain in recent eastern Congo violence

Twenty children are believed to have lost their lives in recent outbreaks of violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, including two burned alive in their own home, UNICEF said Tuesday.

UNICEF condemned the reported killings in North and South Kivu, eastern stretches of the country that are roiled by rebels. The guerrillas include a Rwandan group and former soldiers who defected last month along with Gen. Bosco Ntaganda, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court. He is accused of coercing scores more children to join his forces.

Congolese forces began attacking the armed groups in February. In return, the rebels have stepped up their attacks on civilians, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

UNICEF recounted several attacks that had reportedly killed children, nine of whom were reported slain in a massacre of 37 people in Kamananga. It did not address who committed the attacks, though news reports have widely attributed several of the listed killings to rebel groups.