Teenager enslaved for 8 years

A teenage German woman has been rescued from a Bosnian couple who are accused of starving and beating her for years and of harnessing her to a horse cart and making her pull it. The 19-year-old, kept in a hamlet near the northeastern town of Kalesija since 2004, had been taken to safety and the couple had been detained for investigation, regional prosecutors said on Sunday. Damir Arnautovic, a spokesman for the prosecution in Tuzla, told Reuters Television the woman had been in a bad physical and psychological state and had no papers. She was not named. He said Milenko Marinkovic, 52, and his wife Slavojka, 45, had been detained on suspicion of treating the woman in an inhuman way, "forbidding her any contacts with people, forbidding her to attend school." The woman's German mother had once been married to Marinkovic, although the woman had a different father. Her mother still lives in the hamlet and told reporters there to go away. Arnautovic said the mother had been interrogated by the police as a witness and her role was being investigated. The neighbour who had tipped off police said the woman had been forced into hard labour and was covered in bruises and scars. Cazim Makalic once witnessed Marinkovic harness the girl to a horse cart and forced her to pull it with him and his friend sitting in it while he whipped her, he said. "I could not watch them beat and starve her any more," he said. Source: Reuters

1,000 Vietnamese kids abused per year

It's a grim statistic. Around 1,000 children are sexually abused in Vietnam every year, and the figure is rising, according to government data. More and more cases of children being raped are being reported, including those under five, and many are killed after being raped, the ministry of labour, invalids and social affairs said. In many instances teachers sexually abuse students, fathers rape daughters over a long period of time, and men rape their stepdaughters. The problems of trafficking and kidnapping children have become rampant. In the northern provinces of Ha Giang, Dien Bien, and Lai Chau, local criminals work with foreigners to take advantage of the remoteness of mountainous areas to kidnap children for trafficking to China. In southern provinces like An Giang and Tay Ninh, forcing girls aged 14-15 to work as prostitutes at brothels in neighbouring Cambodia is increasing. Criminals are even trafficking children and babies in the guise of adopting children from poor families. Nguyen Hai Huu, head of the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs' Children Protection and Caring Department, said the cause of the crime is mostly financial difficulty, making some families unable to care for their children or even ignore them completely. This leads to problems like ill-treatment, sexual abuse, violence, exploitation, and children turning to crime. He also blamed the erosion of human values, the negative impacts of pornographic and violent movies, and the increasing rate of divorce. There are not enough organisations to care for children and protect them from these problems, he said. The ministry would continue to study and develop mechanisms and policies to stop violence against and the abuse of children, he promised. Source: ANN/ Vietnam News

Man eats man's face

A naked man in Miami in the USA, was shot dead after being caught chewing another man's head, reported the Miami Herald. It happened on a street. The police officer spotted this and ordered the naked man to back away, but he refused. The police officer opened fire but the attacker continued to eat the man, despite being shot. This forced the police officer to fire at least half a dozen shots before killing hin Officials have yet to identify the officer involved, the deceased, or the victim. Source: Miami Herald

At least 32 children killed in Syria massacre

The United Nations said that more than 100 people including 32 children were killed in the worst violence since the start of a U.N. peace plan to slow the flow of blood in Syria's uprising. The bloodied bodies of children, some with their skulls split open, were shown in footage posted to YouTube purporting to show the victims of the shelling in the central town of Houla on Friday. The sound of wailing filled the room. "This morning U.N. military and civilian observers went to Houla and counted more than 32 children under the age of 10 and over 60 adults killed," the head of U.N. team monitoring the ceasefire - which has yet to take hold - said. "The observers confirmed from examination of ordinances the use of artillery tank shells," Major General Robert Mood said in a statement, without elaborating. "Whoever started, whoever responded and whoever carried out this deplorable act of violence should be held responsible."

In a statement, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon demanded "the government of Syria immediately cease the use of heavy weapons in population centres." "Women, children and old men were shot dead. This is not the hallmark of the heroic Syrian army," Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdesi told reporters in Damascus. Syrian authorities, however, denied carrying out the massacre. Source and images: Reuters