Attackers collecting body parts of albinos for witchcraft have hacked off the hand of a seven-year old boy in Tanzania, the latest in a series of bloody assaults, officials said on Sunday.

“The boy was attacked on Saturday by three people as he walked home with his four school friends,” said Apolinary Macheta, the local government leader in Tanzania’s southwestern Milepa district.

The boy, Mwigulu Magessa, is recovering in hospital, Macheta added.

The attack came just days after an albino mother of four had her arm chopped off by machete-wielding men, with police on Saturday saying they had arrested five men after discovering the decomposing limb hidden in a field.

In Tanzania, albinos are killed and dismembered due to a widespread belief that charms made from their body parts bring good fortune and prosperity.

Albinism is a genetic condition characterised by a deficiency of melanin pigmentation in the skin, hair and eyes which protects from the sun’s ultraviolet rays.

People suffering from the condition are discriminated against and persecuted in many African countries.

Last month an albino child died in Tanzania’s Tabora region after attackers hacked off his arm with a machete.

Kijo Bisimba, of Tanzania’s Legal and Human Rights Centre (LHRC) has said a rise in attacks is “alarming” and pointed to a renewed spate of assaults after what it said was months of calm.

Such ritual killings have also occurred in neighbouring Burundi and some of the attackers are suspected to be from Tanzania, where albino body parts can fetch thousands of dollars.

Tanzania boy assaulted in latest attack on albinos – FRANCE 24

A young mother accused of sorcery was stripped naked, doused with petrol and burned alive in Papua New Guinea because she was allegedly a sorceress.

The woman, named by The National newspaper as Kepari Leniata, 20, was reportedly tortured with a branding iron and tied up, splashed with fuel and set alight on a pile of rubbish topped with car tyres.

According to the rival Post-Courier newspaper she was torched by villagers who claimed she killed a six-year-old boy through sorcery, with police outnumbered by onlookers and unable to intervene.

A fire truck that responded to the incident, which took place on Wednesday morning in Mount Hagen city in the Western Highlands, was also chased away.

According to the reports, which were accompanied by graphic front-page images of the woman’s burning corpse, she admitted to killing the boy, who died after being admitted to hospital with stomach and chest pains on Tuesday.

Police said they were treating the torching as murder and preparing charges against those responsible.

There is a widespread belief in sorcery in the poverty-stricken Pacific nation where many people do not accept natural causes as an explanation for misfortune, illness, accidents or death.

In 1971, the country introduced a Sorcery Act to criminalise the practice. But PNG’s law reform commission recently proposed to repeal it after a rise in attacks on people thought to practise black magic.

Local bishop David Piso said many innocent people had been killed.

“Sorcery and sorcery-related killings are growing and the government needs to come up with a law to stop such practice,” Piso told The National.

Police arrested dozens of people last year linked to an alleged cannibal cult accused of killing at least seven people, eating their brains raw and making soup from their penises.

There have been several other cases of witchcraft and cannibalism in PNG in recent years, with a man reportedly found eating his screaming, newborn son during a sorcery initiation ceremony in 2011.

In 2009, a young woman was stripped naked, gagged and burnt alive at the stake, also in Mount Hagen, in what was said to be a sorcery-related crime.

‘Sorceress’ burned alive in Papua New Guinea – Telegraph

Austria’s Turkish community said the model was based on Hagia Sophia mosque in Istanbul and that the accompanying figures depicted Asians and Orientals as people with “deceitful and criminal personalities.”

The Turkish Cultural Community of Austria released a statement calling for Lego to apologise for affronting religious and cultural feelings.

The anger was provoked by “Jabba’s Palace”, a model of the home of Jabba the Hutt from Lego’s Star Wars product range based on the blockbusting series of science fiction films.

Jabba is the large slug-like creature who holds Han Solo captive in the film Return of the Jedi, and his palace is the setting for several crucial scenes, including using Princess Leia as his slave.

Jabba’s domed home and accompanying watchtower bear, according to the statement, an unwanted resemblance to Istanbul’s great Hagia Sophia, and another mosque in Beirut.

A picture posted on the Cultural Community’s website includes the box for Jabba’s Palace with arrows pointing out similarities to a picture of the Hagia Sofia mosque.

A converted Christian basilica and famed for its massive domed roof, the Hagia Sofia is one of the most famous mosques in the world and served Istanbul’s Muslim community for over 500 years before becoming a museum in 1943. It is also regarded as one of the finest, and largest examples, of Byzantine architecture.

The Jabba case came to light after an Austrian Turk complained to the organisation after his sister had bought his son the box set.

Austria’s Turkish community also took issue with the figures that went with the palace, including Jabba.

“The terrorist Jabba the Hutt likes to smoke a hookah and have his victims killed,” said the statement posted on the organisation’s website.

“It is clear that the ugly figure of Jabba and the whole scene smacks of racial prejudice and vulgar insinuations against Asians and Orientals as people with deceitful and criminal personalities.”

The crimes associated with the figures, the statements adds, include terrorism, slavery, murder and human sacrifice.

Taking into account that many of the Lego figures carry weapons, the Turkish organisation also urged parents “not to buy toys of war or toys of discrimination” as the model goes against the “peaceful coexistence of different cultures in Europe”.

As an indication of the anger felt over Jabba’s Palace, the organisation said it was considering taking legal action against Lego for inciting racial hatred and insulting human dignity.

Katharina Sasse, a public relations manager working on behalf of Lego, denied any link between Jabba’s Palace and the mosque.

“The Lego Star Wars product Jabba´s Palace does not reflect any actually existing buildings, people, or the mentioned mosque,” she said. “The Lego mini-figures are all modelled on characters from the movie.

“We regret that the product has caused the members of the Turkish cultural community to come to a wrong interpretation, but point out that when designing the product only the fictional content of the Star Wars saga were referred to.”

Lego accused of racism with Star Wars set – Telegraph

Books aside, if you asked a college freshman today who the Greatest Generation is, they might respond by pointing in a mirror.

Young people’s unprecedented level of self-infatuation was revealed in a new analysis of the American Freshman Survey, which has been asking students to rate themselves compared to their peers since 1966.

Roughly 9 million young people have taken the survey over the last 47 years.

Psychologist Jean Twenge and her colleagues compiled the data and found that over the last four decades there’s been a dramatic rise in the number of students who describe themselves as being ‘above average’ in the areas of academic ability, drive to achieve, mathematical ability, and self-confidence.

But in appraising the traits that are considered less invidualistic – co-operativeness, understanding others, and spirituality – the numbers either stayed at slightly decreased over the same period.

Researchers also found a disconnect between the student’s opinions of themselves and actual ability.

While students are much more likely to call themselves gifted in writing abilities, objective test scores actually show that their writing abilities are far less than those of their 1960s counterparts.

Also on the decline is the amount of time spent studying, with little more than a third of students saying they study for six or more hours a week compared to almost half of all students claiming the same in the late 1980s.

Though they may work less, the number that said they had a drive to succeed rose sharply.

These young egotists can grow up to be depressed adults.

A 2006 study found that students suffer from ‘ambition inflation’ as their increased ambitions accompany increasingly unrealistic expectations.

‘Since the 1960s and 1970s, when those expectations started to grow, there’s been an increase in anxiety and depression,’ Twenge said. ‘There’s going to be a lot more people who don’t reach their goals.’

Twenge is the author of a separate study showing a 30 per cent increase towards narcissism in students since 1979.

Study shows college students think they’re more special than ever…even those that can’t read or write and barely study | Mail Online

A young woman is savagely gang-raped and beaten one December evening on a moving bus in New Delhi. Hordes of protesters gather in India’s capital and demand that the six perpetrators be hanged or at least castrated. India’s electronic media offers continuous coverage of the sort once reserved for important cricket matches. The woman, a medical student, suffers infections in her lungs and abdomen and an injury to the brain, and is flown to a hospital in Singapore, where she later dies. Delhi’s police chief puts forth the incredible opinion that men in his city are no safer than women because they routinely suffer at the hands of pickpockets. Meanwhile, Abhijit Mukherjee, a minor politician who happens to be the son of India’s president, derides the protesters as “highly dented and painted” women pretending to be students. It’s an Indianism for an old car with extensive bodywork — women, in other words, provoke sexual violence by insufficiently demure clothes and conduct.

How is this happening in India? To much of the world, the debate seems inexplicable in a country where economic change is coming — as is Walmart — and Western clothes, mores, and wine bars are increasingly evident in big cities. Although India’s GDP per capita in 2011 was only $3,700, it’s one of the fastest growing major economies in the world. In 2010, a visiting U.S. President Barack Obama told India it wasn’t a rising power but had already “risen.” Until July, the president of India was a woman. The current leader of the country’s governing Congress Party is a woman, as is the speaker of the lower house of parliament and three chief ministers (the equivalent of a state governor in the United States). Women have a vigorous presence in the urban Indian workplace, and unlike their sisters in nearby Afghanistan, they are a familiar sight on the roads, driving cars and scooters. But make no mistake: India’s woman problem runs deep.

Indeed, the Delhi gang rape and its fallout highlight India’s inherent and disturbing contradictions. In June, a survey of the world’s 20 biggest economies by TrustLaw, a legal news service run by Thomson Reuters, ranked India as the worst country to be female, citing widespread child marriage, murders for insufficient dowry, and domestic slavery — worse even than Saudi Arabia, where women won the vote only in 2011, are treated as legal minors whatever their age, and are still banned from driving.

India Has a Woman Problem – By Rashmee Roshan Lall | Foreign Policy

Teenage girls are becoming involved in dangerous games of competitive dieting thanks to the proliferation of pro-anorexia websites.

Between 400 and 500 websites promoting anorexia and related eating disorders, which are visited by thousands of young girls each day, have been identified in the first review to quantify the phenomenon.

They tell people how to stay thin, promoting diets of 400-500 calories a day (compared with a recommended 2,000 for women and 2,500 for men), backed by coffee, cigarettes and diet pills.

They encourage “starving for perfection” featuring pictures of celebrities such as Keira Knightley and Victoria Beckham and advocate “thinspiration” backed by images of thin bodies.

In one year, more than 500,000 people visited the sites, according to one study, and a 2011 EU survey found that more than one in five 6 to 11-year-olds had been exposed to one or more sites with “harmful content”.

Dr Emma Bond, senior lecturer in childhood and youth studies at the University Campus Suffolk, Ipswich, who carried out the review, said the sites were set up by individuals with eating disorders who in some cases generated a following of almost religious intensity. There was no evidence of commercial involvement.

“It starts with an individual who wants to share their experience and as they get a following they set themselves up as almost Goddess-like,” she said. “When I started this research last January I came across a website set up by a girl who was disgusted with herself because she had put on a few pounds at Christmas. She planned to fast for three days and regain control.

“In under two hours, she had 36 followers saying things like ‘You’re wonderful, you’re an inspiration to me, I’m only fasting because of you’.”

Hundreds of websites urging girls to ‘starve for perfection’ – Health News – Health & Families – The Independent

A new British-based Islamist group plans to meet in Islamabad to issue a religious decree against a Pakistani schoolgirl shot by the Taliban, accusing her of supporting “occupying” U.S. forces.

The move against Malala Yousufzai, 15, is likely to provoke outrage. In the days following her shooting in October, she became an international icon and world leaders pledged to support her campaign for girls’ education.

“There will be a fatwa issued regarding Malala Yousufzai taking into account the full story of her injury including her public statements in support of the occupying U.S. army in the region and mocking of key symbols of Islam such as hijab and jihad,” said Abu Baraa, a senior member of Shariah4Pakistan.

The group, whose website features a blog below a photograph of Yousufzai in a hospital bed titled “Don’t Believe The Crocodile Tears for Malala Yousufzai”, is associated with some of Britain’s most hardline Islamists.

Anjem Choudary, a prominent radical cleric in Britain, said the fatwa could be issued on November 30 at Lal Masjid, one of Pakistan’s most notorious mosques, where a 2007 army raid crushed a Taliban-style movement controlling the compound.

The mosque’s deputy head, Maulana Amir Siddique, denied the group would hold such a conference but organizers insisted they did not need permission to gather in a public place of worship.

Yousufzai is recovering in a British hospital.

Neither Baraa nor Choudary would say what punishment Yousufzai might face if the group found her guilty of violating Islam.

British Islamists to issue fatwa against shot Pakistani girl

Denied the right to travel without consent from their male guardians and banned from driving, women in Saudi Arabia are now monitored by an electronic system that tracks any cross-border movements.

Since last week, Saudi women’s male guardians began receiving text messages on their phones informing them when women under their custody leave the country, even if they are travelling together.

Manal al-Sherif, who became the symbol of a campaign launched last year urging Saudi women to defy a driving ban, began spreading the information on Twitter, after she was alerted by a couple.

The husband, who was travelling with his wife, received a text message from the immigration authorities informing him that his wife had left the international airport in Riyadh.

“The authorities are using technology to monitor women,” said columnist Badriya al-Bishr, who criticised the “state of slavery under which women are held” in the ultra-conservative kingdom.

Women are not allowed to leave the kingdom without permission from their male guardian, who must give his consent by signing what is known as the “yellow sheet” at the airport or border.

The move by the Saudi authorities was swiftly condemned on social network Twitter — a rare bubble of freedom for millions in the kingdom — with critics mocking the decision.

“Hello Taliban, herewith some tips from the Saudi e-government!” read one post.

“Why don’t you cuff your women with tracking ankle bracelets too?” wrote Israa.

“Why don’t we just install a microchip into our women to track them around?” joked another.

“If I need an SMS to let me know my wife is leaving Saudi Arabia, then I’m either married to the wrong woman or need a psychiatrist,” tweeted Hisham.

“This is technology used to serve backwardness in order to keep women imprisoned,” said Bishr, the columnist.

“It would have been better for the government to busy itself with finding a solution for women subjected to domestic violence” than track their movements into and out of the country.

Saudi Arabia applies a strict interpretation of sharia, or Islamic law, and is the only country in the world where women are not allowed to drive.

Electronic tracking: new constraint for Saudi women

India’s commitment to free speech has been cast into the spotlight yet again after two women were arrested over a Facebook post this weekend.

According to the Times of India, a 21-year-old woman was arrested on Sunday over comments she made on her Facebook account criticizing the shutdown of the city of Mumbai following the death of politician Bal Thackeray.

A friend who had “liked” the comment was also arrested.

The BBC reports that Mumbai was brought to a standstill following the death of Thackeray, a “controversial Hindu nationalist politician,” on Saturday.

The news agency writes:

Thackeray, one of the most divisive figures in Indian politics, was blamed for inciting tensions between Hindus and Muslims and was revered by his followers.

News of his death saw businesses shutting and taxis staying off the roads amid fears of violence by supporters of the right-wing Shiv Sena party he founded.

More than a million people attended Thackeray’s funeral, the Associated Press reports.

However, while the politician’s supporters mourned his death, many others were reportedly “angered by the inconvenience to commuters” and took to social media sites to criticize the shutdown, the BBC adds.

In her Facebook comment, the 21-year-old woman, identified by the Hindustan Times as Shaheen Dhada, wrote: “People like Thackeray are born and die daily and one should not observe a ‘bandh’ [shutdown] for that.”

According to the Times of India, the woman and a friend who had “liked” the comment were arrested “for hurting religious sentiments.” They were released on bail a few hours later.

The newspaper also reports that “though the girl withdrew her comment and apologized, a mob of some 2,000 Shiv Sena workers attacked and ransacked her uncle’s orthopedic clinic” following the Facebook post.

The two arrests have incited outrage among some members of the Indian press, as well as the public, the Hindustan Times reports.

Indian Women Arrested Over Facebook Post Questioning Mumbai’s ‘Bal Thackeray Shutdown’

A man who insulted the King of Bahrain on Twitter has been sentenced to six months in jail as the tiny island nation ramps up its crackdown on dissent amid increasingly violent protests.

The man, whose name was not released, was one of four on trial for “defaming” King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, with the rest to be sentenced next week. It came as hundreds took to the streets to voice their anger over a ban on protesting.

The monarchy brutally stamped out a pro-democracy uprising last year but tensions between the government and protesters have been building once more, with marches taking place near daily in recent weeks and often ending in violent clashes with molotov cocktails and tear gas exchanged. Two protesters have been shot dead by security forces in recent weeks.

A ban on protesting – the most significant rolling back of freedoms since the government temporarily imposed martial law last year – was announced this week, but has only served to stoke tensions. Bahrain’s Interior Ministry said that “repeated abuse” of the right to freedom of speech had forced them to make the move, adding that the ban was intended to be temporary.

Man who insulted the King of Bahrain on Twitter sentenced to six months in jail – Middle East – World – The Independent