World News joined 2

[OMEN]

SCHOOL TRAGEDY: School bags are seen among the rubble of a collapsed primary school at the township of Wufu.
Nearly every building in the tiny rural town of Wufu withstood the forceful earthquake that shook China on Monday. One major structure – the New No 2 Primary School – collapsed, killing some 300 children.

Now grieving parents, many of whom dug through rubble with their hands in a frantic effort to save their children, are venting their anger at local officials who they claim knew the building was substandard.

Jumbled mounds of concrete and brick are all that remain of the three-storey schoolhouse that caved in just moments before afternoon classes were to begin. Notebooks, backpacks, clothes and a tin lunch box litter the picked-over rubble.

The scene is repeated in towns and cities across the quake-damaged section of Sichuan, where more than 50,000 people may have died, including hundreds of students crushed when their schools collapsed.

Bi Kaiwei's 13-year-old daughter, Yuexing, was in her second storey sixth-grade classroom when the walls and ceiling crashed down in the quake.

"Our child wasn't killed by the earthquake. She and the others were killed by a derelict building," he said. "The officials knew it was unsafe."

"Look at that one there," Bi said, pointing diagonally across from where the school used to stand to a yellowish corner building spared of damaged. "We live there. It was built in 1982. It's still standing."

Premier Wen Jiabao earlier this week stood symbolically on the rubble of another collapsed school in Sichuan and told students trapped below that they would be saved.

But that was little consolation in Wufu, where residents say the local government hasn't even announced the number of children killed in the school.

The loss of so many children is particularly poignant in China, where the government's family planning policies, aimed at curbing population growth, mean that most have only one child.

When the New No 2 Primary School fell, parents, relatives and friends of pupils rushed to the site.

Sang Jun, a short, lively man, arrived about 20 minutes after the earthquake to look for his son. "There were already five people digging," said Sang. He jumped in to help.

His arms and legs, like Bi's and other parents here, are now scarred with scrapes and bruises from the frantic efforts to pull apart the rubble and get to their kids below.

Holding a pair of dirty blue jeans and a blue work shirt stained with blood, Sang said: "I was wearing these. I pulled out more than 20 children. . . Only five were alive."

Zhang Chao was recovering from surgery in a hospital nearby. When he heard the school was demolished, he got up and went to help, pulling several bodies from the wreckage.

Down the road, a hefty farmer with a buzz cut named Zuo Jun hobbles with a crutch along a dirt path beside a golden field of wheat. Zuo injured his left foot prying through the rubble in search of his 11-year-old son, Zuo Hao, who appears pudgy with a crew cut and a jovial smile in family photos.

At the end of the raised path in the corner of the field is a mound of fresh dirt where Hao is buried.

"If the teachers had been there, he would be alive," said Zuo with a pained look. "During the lunch break, the teachers put two classes together, locked them in and then went to play mahjong. This is what students said."

Nearby fields are dotted with similar small graves. At one site, where three pupils were buried, relatives burn a pile of their child's clothes along with incense, hay and fake money.

Further along another farm path is the home of Yan Qiuyi, a classmate and close friend of Bi Yuexing's who survived. Her arm is in a sling because her shoulder was broken, her face is puffy and scarred, and she walks with a limp.

When her friend's parents approach, carrying a photo of their daughter striking a playful pose, tears flow from Yan's red, tired eyes. Speechless, Yan holds the picture to her face and cries.

Bi Yuexing's new grave is a mound of dirt ringed with small rocks in the shade of a bamboo stand and next to her great grandparents' remains. "The government told us to bury our children. There were too many to cremate," Bi said.

The parents of the victims are planning to meet on Monday morning at the school site to work out a plan to seek retribution, perhaps by suing the local education department.

"At night there is no rest," said Bi. "They must have been so scared. In bed I keep having the image of those children in my head, not knowing what was happening. If there were a teacher there to guide them out, or if they had their parents there, they might not have been so scared."

Reuters

[JohnCenaFan28]

OMG, that's an awful sight...

[OMEN]

Counter-terrorism police raided two Sydney homes, seizing documents and computer equipment this morning.

Police said the coordinated raids took place in Glebe and Riverwood, in the city's inner west and south-west respectively.

No-one was arrested but documents and computer hard-drives were seized for examination, police said.

The raids were part of a joint operation between NSW police and the Australian Federal Police.

The nature of the investigation was not revealed, but a NSW police spokesman said inquiries were continuing.

AAP

[JohnCenaFan28]

Thanks for the story.

[OMEN]

US presidential candidate John McCain said he believes the Iraq war can be won within four years, leaving a functioning democracy there and allowing most US troops to come home.

It was the first time the Arizona senator has put a date on when US troops could be withdrawn from Iraq.

The five-year war is unpopular with the US public and McCain's Democratic rivals for the White House, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, have pledged to begin bringing US troops home right away.

McCain has called such promises reckless. He has rejected withdrawal timetables and agrees with President George W Bush that troop levels should be governed by conditions on the ground.

McCain, who will run against either Obama or Clinton in November to succeed Bush in January 2009, laid out a scenario he thought was achievable within his first four-year term.

"By January 2013, America has welcomed home most of the servicemen and women who have sacrificed terribly so that America might be secure in her freedom," McCain said in a speech in Columbus, Ohio.

"The Iraq war has been won. Iraq is a functioning democracy, although still suffering from the lingering effects of decades of tyranny and centuries of sectarian tension. Violence still occurs, but it is spasmodic and much reduced," McCain said.

Under that scenario, US troops would still be present, but those soldiers would not play a "direct combat role" because Iraqi forces would be capable of providing order.

Speaking with reporters after the speech, McCain insisted he was not talking about a timetable for withdrawal but discussing what he believed would be achieved.

"I'm saying that we are succeeding in Iraq and we will have succeeded further in Iraq in 2013," he said.

McCain also predicted that al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden would be captured or killed within four years and the militant group's presence in Afghanistan would be reduced to remnants.

On the economy, he promised taxpayers the option of filing under a simpler system than the current multilayered code and said he would overhaul government spending practices that have led to "extravagantly wasted money."

Ohio is expected to be a hard-fought state in the general election and McCain's visit there came as Obama, the Democratic front-runner, moves closer to his party's nomination.

Obama has charged that McCain wants to keep the United States entangled in Iraq for 100 years, referring to a comment McCain made in January, when he asked how many years the United States might have a presence in Iraq.

McCain responded, "Maybe a hundred."

He has since said that remark was taken out of context and he was talking about a troop presence aimed at maintaining stability, like the US presence now in Japan, South Korea and Germany.

McCain said on Wednesday he recognized his party's battered image posed challenges for him.

"We've got a lot of work to do," McCain said. "I have a lot of work to do."


Reuters

[JohnCenaFan28]

The war should be ended...

[Black Widow]

Computer charges against woman whose daughter feuded with victim



Tina Meier holds two pictures of her daughter Megan, who committed suicide in October.



updated 5:49 p.m. ET May 15, 2008

LOS ANGELES - A federal grand jury on Thursday indicted a Missouri woman for her alleged role in perpetrating a hoax on the online social network MySpace against a 13-year-old neighbor who committed suicide.

Lori Drew of suburban St. Louis allegedly helped create a false-identity MySpace account to contact Megan Meier, who thought she was chatting with a 16-year-old boy named Josh Evans. Josh didn't exist.

Megan hanged herself at home in October 2006 after receiving cruel messages, including one stating the world would be better off without her.

Salvador Hernandez, assistant agent in charge of the Los Angeles FBI office, called the case heart-rending.

"The Internet is a world unto itself. People must know how far they can go before they must stop. They exploited a young girl's weaknesses," Hernandez said. "Whether the defendant could have foreseen the results, she's responsible for her actions."


She's denied sending messages
Drew was charged with one count of conspiracy and three counts of accessing protected computers without authorization to get information used to inflict emotional distress on the girl.

Drew has denied creating the account or sending messages to Megan.

U.S. Attorney Thomas P. O'Brien said this was the first time the federal statute on accessing protected computers has been used in a social-networking case. It has been used in the past to address hacking.

"This was a tragedy that did not have to happen," O'Brien said.

Both the girl and MySpace are named as victims in the case, he said.

MySpace is a subsidiary of Beverly Hills-based Fox Interactive Media Inc., which is owned by News Corp. The indictment noted that MySpace computer servers are located in Los Angeles County.

Due to juvenile privacy rules, the U.S. attorney's office said, the indictment refers to the girl as M.T.M.

FBI agents in St. Louis and Los Angeles investigated the case, Hernandez said.

Each of the four counts carries a maximum possible penalty of five years in prison. Drew will be arraigned in St. Louis and then moved to Los Angeles for trial.

Citing terms of MySpace service
The indictment says MySpace members agree to abide by terms of service that include, among other things, not promoting information they know to be false or misleading; soliciting personal information from anyone under age 18 and not using information gathered from the Web site to "harass, abuse or harm other people."

Drew and others who were not named conspired to violate the service terms from about September 2006 to mid-October that year, according to the indictment. It alleges they registered as a MySpace member under a phony name and used the account to obtain information on the girl.

Drew and her coconspirators "used the information obtained over the MySpace computer system to torment, harass, humiliate, and embarrass the juvenile MySpace member," the indictment charged.

After the girl killed herself, Drew and the others deleted the information for the account, the indictment said.

Last month, an employee of Drew, 19-year-old Ashley Grills, told ABC's "Good Morning America" she created the false MySpace profile but Drew wrote some of the messages to Megan.

A joke taken too far
Grills said Drew suggested talking to Megan via the Internet to find out what Megan was saying about Drew's daughter, who was a former friend.

TIMELINE: Megan Meier Internet suicide case

Introduction
A federal grand jury on Thursday indicted a Missouri mother for her alleged role in perpetrating a hoax on the online social network MySpace against 13-year-old Megan, who committed suicide.

September 2006:
Megan, of Dardenne Prairie, Mo., begins communicating online on MySpace with "Josh Evans," who she thinks is a good-looking boy living in her area.

Oct. 15, 2006:
She receives a message from Josh, saying he doesn't want to be her friend anymore.

Oct. 16, 2006:
Megan receives cruel messages through MySpace, including one from "Josh," allegedly telling her the world would be a better place without her. Megan runs upstairs. About 20 minutes later, Megan's mother finds her daughter has hanged herself in her closet.

Oct. 17, 2006:
Megan dies at a hospital, a few weeks before her 14th birthday.

Fall 2006:
Megan's parents learn from a neighbor that Josh was the creation of another neighbor, Lori Drew, her teenage employee Ashley Grills, and Drew's teenage daughter, a former friend of Megan. They are told the MySpace profile was created to see what Megan was saying about Drew's daughter online. Drew, through her attorney, later disputes she helped create the site or knew of mean messages prior to Megan's death.

Fall 2007:
Media accounts of Megan's suicide fuel public outrage in the case.

Dec. 3, 2007:
St. Charles County, Mo., prosecutor Jack Banas says he reviewed laws related to stalking, harassment and child endangerment and couldn't find statutes allowing him to file charges.


May 15, 2008:
A Los Angeles federal grand jury indicts the mother, charging her with one count of conspiracy and three counts of accessing protected computers without authorization.

Grills also said she wrote the message to Megan about the world being a better place without her. The message was supposed to end the online relationship with "Josh" because Grills felt the joke had gone too far.

"I was trying to get her angry so she would leave him alone and I could get rid of the whole MySpace," Grills told the morning show.

Megan's death was investigated by Missouri authorities, but no state charges were filed because no laws appeared to apply to the case.





msnbc.msn.com

[JohnCenaFan28]

Wow... interesting read, thanks.

[JoshTheKiller]

What a fucking doosh..

[Edgehead82593]

Still wondering why she would commit suicide because some internet asshole said something