One baby was healthy and the other cold and lifeless, a sight that horrified Michael Mubangizi and his wife, a young Ugandan couple who soon felt one of their twin babies had been swapped at Uganda’s main public hospital. They rejected the dead one, saying it wasn’t theirs, and a DNA test later proved they were right.

Mubangizi said the likely prospect that he won’t ever be united with his missing baby, born a year and a half ago and whose whereabouts are unknown, fills him with anguish. As a court is set to hear his civil case against Mulago Hospital, officials and some activists say parents in Uganda risk losing their children in scams orchestrated by doctors and nurses who are apparently selling the babies.

Some may be colluding with childless Ugandan couples while other babies are possibly being sold to foreigners. Last week a Czech man without proper adoption papers was arrested while trying to leave Uganda with a 3-month-old baby, according to Moses Binoga, a police detective and Uganda’s top anti-human trafficking official.

Details are scant and officials don’t know how widespread the baby thefts are. But this year alone, at least three cases of baby theft have been reported at Mulago Hospital in Uganda’s capital, Kampala, according to police spokesman Patrick Onyango. A police report released last year said there were 261 cases of child theft over a 12-month period, but that includes teenagers who are duped to go abroad for work but are forced into the sex trade. The police report did not break down the numbers.

Newborns being stolen at a top Uganda hospital

Wait … what?:

Q2 Who do you think was more responsible for the poor response to Hurricane Katrina: George W. Bush or Barack Obama?

George W. Bush ……………………………………… 28%

Barack Obama………………………………………… 29%

Not sure ………………………………………………… 44%

That’s from a new survey conducted by Public Policy Polling of 274 Republican primary voters in Louisiana (h/t Alex Wagner). Hurricane Katrina took place in August 2005. George W. Bush was president until January 2009.

Whats the matter with Louisiana? – POLITICO.com

In Russia it is now illegal to even speak about homosexuality around minors, much less openly display gay pride. Technically the ban is against “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations” around minors, but the implication for openly gay individuals is clear. Public displays of affection by gays, including holding hands or displaying symbols like a rainbow flag, are now banned. Violators face steep fines and jail time; foreigners face similar penalties plus deportation.

So what will happen to openly gay athletes and fans, as well as any vocal supporters or protestors, when Russia hosts the Winter Olympics next year in Sochi?

This week, comments by a lawmaker from St. Petersburg set off a firestorm online when he said that fans and athletes would not be immune from prosecution during the games.

Vitaly Milonov, who sponsored legislation in St. Petersburg last year that became the basis for a national law signed by President Vladimir Putin in June, was quoted telling the Interfax news agency that the law will remain in place during the Olympics and will be applied to foreigners.

Gay Athletes Could Be Prosecuted at 2014 Winter Olympics, Russian Lawmaker Suggests – ABC News

Norwegian interior designer Marte Deborah Dalelv has spoken out after being handed a 16-month prison sentence in Dubai — after she went to police to report she had been raped by a colleague.

The 24-year-old was convicted and sentenced on charges of having unlawful sex, making a false statement and illegal consumption of alcohol.

Her story is dominating the headlines in Norway, and has raised serious questions over the way women who allege sexual assault are treated in the United Arab Emirates.

Norwegian sentenced to prison after she files rape claim in Dubai – CNN.com

Poor women have been exploited at their most vulnerable time by a hospital that charged them $5 every time they screamed during child birth.

The shocking discovery was made by a U.S. group that campaigns against corruption, as it released its annual Global Corruption Barometer.

At the hospital in Zimbabwe, one of the poorest countries in the world, the fine was said to be for ‘raising a false alarm’, according to Transparency International.

Women who were unable to pay the fine were allegedly kept in the hospital until their families could pay. Interest was also added to the fines, according to the Washington Post.

Many mothers already avoid hospital deliveries in the African nation because of the $50 cost, which is about the third of the average $150 income.

In a country where nearly 95 per cent of the population is unemployed after years of economic turmoil and corruption under President Mugabe, and where one in eight women die in childbirth every day, the fines could rob a woman of a year’s salary.

A survey of Zimbabweans found 65 per cent believed the country’s medical services to be corrupt.

Hospital where women are charged $5 every time they scream during childbirth is revealed in list of most corrupt countries | Mail Online

On Wednesday night, when Egypt’s army chief announced the forced departure of Mohamed Morsi, the streets around Tahrir Square turned into an all-night carnival. But not everyone there was allowed to celebrate. Among the masses dancing, singing and honking horns, more than 80 women were subjected to mob sexual assaults, harassment or rape. In Tahrir Square since Sunday, when protests against Morsi first began, there have been at least 169 counts of sexual mob crime.

“Egypt is full of sexual harassment and people have become desensitised to it – but this is a step up,” said Soraya Bahgat, a women’s rights advocate and co-founder of Tahrir Bodyguard, a group that rescues women from assault. “We’re talking about mob sexual assaults, from stripping women naked and dragging them on the floor – to rape.”

Since Sunday, campaigners say at least one woman has been raped with a sharp object.

Such crimes have been endemic at Tahrir protests since at least the 2011 revolution, but they have never been documented in such high numbers.

“It’s been underreported because a lot of people are unwilling to come forward,” said Bahgat, “and because no one wanted to disturb the sanctity of Tahrir.”

In a typical attack, lines of men push their way through the packed square, surround lone women, and start ripping at their clothes until they are naked. Some women have been violated by men using their hands.

“Suddenly, I was in the middle, surrounded by hundreds of men in a circle that was getting smaller and smaller around me,” one woman has written of the experience. “At the same time, they were touching and groping me everywhere and there were so many hands under my shirt and inside my pants.”

“We call it the circle of hell,” said Bahgat, who herself narrowly escaped assault this week.

80 sexual assaults in one day – the other story of Tahrir Square | World news | guardian.co.uk

The United States no longer holds the title of the world’s most populous, obese nation; that designation has been passed on to Mexico.

According to a new report from the United Nations, nearly 70 percent of Mexican adults are overweight, and childhood obesity in the country has tripled within the past decade, Medical Daily reported. One-third of Mexican teenagers are also obese, and experts believe that four out of every five obese children will remain overweight for the rest of their lives.

Overall, 32.8 percent of Mexican adults are considered obese, compared to 31.8 percent of adults in the United States. Nearly 70,000 deaths in Mexico each year are caused by weight-related diabetes, and more than 400,000 new cases of diabetes are diagnosed annually.

Experts believe the rise in Mexico’s obesity rates has to do with the continuously growing gap between the country’s classes, as 50 percent of the population currently lives below the poverty line. According to Medical Daily, healthy diets are becoming less affordable, prompting individuals with low incomes to consume more unhealthy foods, such as fried foods and soda.

One researcher also believes the increase can be attributed to more Mexicans moving from rural to urban areas, where food prices are much higher and sedentary lifestyles are easier.

Mexico beats US to be world’s fattest country – but we’re still a close second – NYPOST.com

Pakistan — a global leader in intolerance towards homosexuals — leads the world in Google searches for gay pornography, according to an analysis of search terms published by Mother Jones.

The study found the Islamic republic is the world leader by volume of searches form the terms “shemale sex,” “teen anal sex,” and “man f***ing man,” while it ranks second in searches for the term “gay sex pics.”

The term “shemale sex” was most-searched for in the city of Peshwar, a conservative Islamic stronghold that has become a frontline in the war on terror.

In a survey of 39 countries worldwide, the Pew Research Center asked the question, “Should society accept homosexuality?”

In the United States and Western Europe the answer was a resounding “yes,” but wallowing at the bottom of the countries surveyed was Pakistan where only 2% of those surveyed answered in the affirmative making the predominantly Muslim nation one of the least tolerant countries on Earth, according to Mother Jones.

“Religious extremism is at a height today,” said Farahnaz Ispahan, an expert in Pakistani minorities at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and a former member of Pakistans parliament.

“Hindus are being forced to convert, Christians are being burned alive—there’s very little personal safety for those seen as the other.” Ispahan said while trying to explain Pakistans odd relationship with homosexuality and gay porn.

“So what do [gay Pakistanis] do? They turn to pornography because they cant live their lives openly.”

Part of the reason why gay Pakistanis cant live openly is because gay sex is illegal and can be punished with a lengthy jail sentence.

Pakistan hates gays but love shemale sex and man fing man porn searches – NYPOST.com

Sometimes known as “worming” – which somehow makes this whole thing worse – oculolinctus is being blamed for a significant rise in Japanese cases of conjunctivitis and eye-chlamydia, which is actually a thing. It’s apparently seen as a new second-base; the thing you graduate to when kissing gets boring.

The craze is thought to stem from a music video by Japanese emo band Born (there’s a chance that the eyeball-licking scene was only included to distract everyone from the fact that the song sounds like it belongs on a menu screen for an EA Sports game about snowboarding from a decade ago, but at this point that’s just speculation).

Tumblr, inevitably, is filling up with drawings and unnecessarily close-up photographs of the act, and YouTube is no stranger either. One theory about why it has taken off so spectacularly is down to the sheer number of nerve endings in the cornea. The eyeballs are incredibly sensitive because they need to detect grit and other small particles, and the sensation of oculolinctus is supposedly akin to that of toesucking.

Eyeball-licking: the fetish that is making Japanese teenagers sick | Life and style | The Guardian

A certificate used to be enough for students with perfect attendance at the end of the school year. But in the Los Angeles Unified School District, two perfect attendees throughout high school received new Chevrolet Sonics, priced at $18,000, for showing up to school every day. During the 2012-2013 school year, LAUSD has handed out monthly prizes to kids who were present every day; the awards were presented by local donor companies, including Knott’s Berry Farm and Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach.

Five elementary students also will receive iPads for winning the so-called Attendance Challenge, and six campuses will receive cash prizes of $3,000 to create programs to encourage attendance.

Why all the focus on attendance instead of student performance? Because the LAUSD system is paid by the state of California only for attendance. Every student is worth $32 per day from the state to the LAUSD system. That means that when students skip school, the unionized teachers and administrators pay the price. This year alone, LAUSD missed out on $156 million in funding thanks to students cutting class, including $14 million for kindergarteners who didn’t show up.

It isn’t Oprah running LAUSD and handing out cars. It’s the teachers unions, which are mainly concerned with creating bizarre incentive systems to get butts in the seats rather than knowledge in the brains.

Los Angeles Gives Cars, iPads, Cash to Student Winners of ‘Attendance Challenge’