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Crimes>Shocking
Latin America | Colombia | Activism

Revered Social Leader and Activist Killed in Colombia

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Social leader Tatiana Paola Posso Espitia, 35, was shot twice in the head Wednesday morning in front of her house in El Copey located in the Department of Cesar when two men on motorcycles fired at the activist and fled the scene. The assassination occurred just as Espitia’s taxi driver, Wilson Ortega Palomino, arrived at her home to take the social leader to work, according to local media reports. The bad timing resulted in Ortega also being shot four times by the hitmen. He is in critical condition at a nearby hospital. The National Network for Democracy and Peace in Colombia
South Asia | Afghanistan | Crimes

Mena Mangal: Journalist and women’s rights campaigner shot dead in broad daylight in Kabul

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An Afghan journalist and political advisor, who was vocal about women’s rights in the country, has been gunned down in broad daylight, just days after saying she believed her life was in danger. Mena Mangal was shot dead on Saturday morning in a public place while she was on her way to work in the capital city of Kabul. Nasrat Rahimi, a spokesman for the interior ministry, said one or possibly more assailants had escaped the scene but no one has immediately claimed responsibility for the attack and police say it is not yet clear whether the murder was a terror attack or an attack from
Latin America | Honduras | Crimes

Outrageous: Berta Cáceres, Honduran human rights and environment activist, murdered

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Berta Cáceres, the Honduran indigenous and environmental rights campaigner, has been murdered, barely a week after she was threatened for opposing a hydroelectric project. Her death prompted international outrage at the murderous treatment of campaigners in Honduras, as well as a flood of tributes to a prominent and courageous defender of the natural world. The co-founder of the Council of Indigenous Peoples of Honduras (Copinh) was shot dead by gunmen who entered her home in La Esperanza at around 1am on Thursday. Some reports say there were two killers; others suggest 11. They escaped
Latin America | Colombia | Crimes

Colombia finally cracks down on a horrific wave of acid attacks against women

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Colombia is finally taking action against what may be one of the most intense waves of horrific acid attacks on women anywhere in the world. President Juan Manuel Santos this week closed a legal loophole that often allowed attackers to get away scot-free. Official figures acknowledge 628 victims, but women’s rights activists believe the true toll may be far higher. Under the new law, signed Monday, anyone using any kind of “chemical agent” to physically harm another person will receive a minimum sentence of 12 years behind bars. If the victim is permanently disfigured, the
Europe | U.K. | Crimes

Police say UK journalist Jacky Sutton’s death in Istanbul airport was suspicious

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The unexplained death of British journalist Jacky Sutton in an Istanbul airport is now being treated as suspicious after police discovered thousands of euros in her bag, adding fresh doubt to reports suggesting she killed herself due to lack of funds. In the early hours of Sunday morning, Russian tourists found Sutton, 50, hanged in a toilet cubicle at Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport after missing her connecting flight to Erbil, Iraq. Sutton was the acting Iraq director for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR), a London-based non-profit media organization. Her death comes five
Latin America | Mexico | Crimes

Politician Says Homeless People Should Be Put Down By Lethal Injection

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A Mexican councillor has provoked outrage after that homeless people should be put down like animals to keep the number of them on the streets down. Olga Gutierrez Machorro believes that beggars should be culled with lethal injection, believing it to be in their best interests. She said: “Yes they’re a little crazy, but they’re harmless. “Which is why I think to myself wouldn’t it be kinder to just give them a lethal injection?” Unbelievably, Machorro, who is a member of the local government in Tecamachalco, Mexico, is also the councillor responsible for the Vulnerable Groups C
North America | United States | Corruption

Mostly Women…Shame: School drug counselors charged with carrying out $46-million Medi-Cal fraud scheme

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In middle schools and high schools across Los Angeles County, Atlantic Recovery Services offered some hope: a free, government-funded treatment program for children coping with drug and alcohol addiction. But prosecutors alleged this week that the Long Beach-based program was set up to exploit children and defraud taxpayers, with supervisors telling staffers to forge student signatures, falsify treatment records, and enroll students who may have merely dabbled in drugs, even once. Eight employees of the now-defunct drug treatment company have been charged in a decade-long scheme that ne
Europe | Italy | Crimes

Woman wakes from coma to deny she jumped from cruise ship; attempted murder investigation opened

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An attempted murder investigation has been launched in northern Italy after a woman thought to have tried to commit suicide by jumping off a cruise ship awoke from a long coma and said she had not tried to kill herself. The 53-year-old woman, who works at a bank in the northern Italian city of Turin, told police she had argued with her partner in their cabin on the Costa cruise ship docked in the Norwegian port of Flam shortly before falling off the boat on July 19, the Turin daily La Stampa reported. She told the paper she could not remember how she managed to fall 115 feet from her bal
Asia | Thailand | Crimes

Human Trafficking Bust, Women Lured Through Facebook

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Human trafficking busts have reached a new level of difficulty with the advent of social media. Three sex-slave recruiters arrested by Thai police early this week allegedly lured women on Facebook with hospitality jobs in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Yahoo News reported that Thailand’s Lieutenant-Colonel Komvich Padhanarath identified one of the suspects as Kheng Hsiang Low, a Malaysian male who, along with two female Thai associates, engaged women on Facebook to work in restaurants, spas, and karaoke bars in Malaysia. Instead, the unsuspecting victims ended up in the sex trade. Thailand�
North America | United States | Corruption

Chesterfield woman charged with stealing $800,000 from Virginia Physicians for Women

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A former billing specialist for Virginia Physicians for Women who has a prior conviction for welfare fraud has been charged with embezzling more than $800,000 from the well-known obstetrics and gynecology practice in Midlothian. Edith W. Harris, 51, of the 7400 block of Sandlewood Drive, was arrested June 29 on 11 counts of felony embezzlement, Chesterfield County police announced Monday. Grohowski said Harris was responsible for making reimbursements to the accounts of patients who had overpaid for services while under the care of Virginia Physicians for Women at 10710 Midlothian Turn
Africa | Nigeria | Crimes

Alarming rise in suicide bombings by underage girls

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There has been an alarming spike in the number of suicide attacks carried out by the Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram using underage female bombers in northeastern Nigeria, according to a new report released by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). The UN agency reported 27 such attacks in the first five months of this year, compared with 26 for the entirety of 2014. At least three-quarters of the attacks in crowded target areas like busy markets and bus stations were carried out by female bombers, some approximately as young as seven.
Africa | Nigeria | Crimes

The World’s Hardest Country for Women

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At age 14, Amina should have been in school. Instead she became a bride, and six years later, living in abject poverty, she still endures the painful aftermath of the prolonged labor that led to the death of her baby during childbirth. In the rural Hausa tradition in northern Nigeria, it is expected that women give birth at home. Any woman who cries out while in labor is presumed to be weak. But when Amina’s situation got worse, she had to be rushed by her siblings to the hospital. By the time she got there she had lost her baby. The prolonged obstructed labor left Amina with a fistula
North America | United States | Crimes

Alabama, U.S. officials to improve women’s prison known for sex abuse

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Alabama has reached an agreement with U.S. civil rights officers to address sexual abuse at a state women's prison where an investigation found inmates were being raped, fondled and harassed by guards, officials said on Thursday. Governor Robert Bentley announced the plan to reform Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women in central Alabama, where federal investigators last year issued a report documenting conditions they called unconstitutional. The U.S. Department of Justice found that inmates were living in fear for their safety in an environment where some were forced to perform sex acts to o
South Asia | Pakistan | Crimes

Acid attacks persist in Pakistan

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In a terrifying act of violence, a man in Pakistan’s Quetta city of Baluchistan province severely injured two Christian girls by spraying acid on their faces using a syringe. Acid is an easily and cheaply accessible weapon for people seeking revenge in domestic violence cases. However, the victims are left with no legal resources and suffer severe psychological trauma as they face the social stigmas that come with disfigurement.

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