A former candidate for Britain's Conservative Party told a female employee that "all women should be sterilised", an employment tribunal has heard.

Former employee Sarah Nixon is accusing Mr Coates of sexual discrimination, unpaid wages, and sexual harassment and constructive dismissal.

Samantha Catchpole, a former team leader at Mr Coates' company, said that she had spoken to colleage Emma Morris after becoming pregnant.

Ms Morris "said she had approached Ross Coates to inform him that she had a doctor's appointment, to which he asked her if she was pregnant. He stated that he was unhappy with his staff getting pregnant and said he should ask for women to be sterilised before working for him."

Helen Ash, Mr Coates' former assistant, told the tribunal that when he found out Ms Catchpole was pregnant he said "Well, that's it. That's her team gone then. This is exactly why all women should be sterilised."

(Source: MX)

 

A retired Catholic Archbishop has claimed that he didn't realise that child sexual abuse was a crime.

In his memoirs, retired Archbishop of Milwaukee Rembert Weakland says that "we all considered sexual abuse of minors as a moral evil, but had no understanding of its criminal nature."

Weakland retired in 2002 after it became known that he paid $450,000 in 1998 to a man who had accused him of date rape years earlier.

(Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

 

A new reality TV show will film employees of threatened firms, competing to avoid being fired.

Each week the show, Someone's Gotta Go, sets itself up in a small business where redundancies have to be made. The employees - usually 15 to 20 of them - will be allowed to see the firm's books, and will be told how much each of them earns.

Then they will reveal what they think of each other. At the climax of the episode the employees will vote to decide which of them is fired.

The show has been developed by production company Endemol USA, and the Fox network.

More than 5 million Americans have been let go since the recession started in December 2007, and the unemployment rate now stands at 8.5%.

A spokesman for Endemol said that "we're always trying to find the next thing that is topical and timely in the zeitgeist."

He added that "for a lot of [employers], it takes the pressure off them. As a boss myself, I don't want to have to make those decisions. It's safe to say it hasn't been difficult to find companies willing to participate."

(Source: The Guardian [UK])

 

The Irish government was aware of the abuse of thousands of children in institutions run by the Catholic Church, but took no action, according to a government report.

A nine-year investigation by the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse concluded that more than 30,000 children deemed to be petty thieves, truants or from dysfunctional families - a category that often included unmarried mothers - were sent to one of a network of industrial schools, reformatories, orphanages and hostels from the 1930s until the last church-run facilities shut in the 1990s.

"In some schools a high level of ritualised beating was routine. Girls were struck with implements designed to maximise pain and were struck on all parts of the body" the report says. "Personal and family denigration was widespread."

"Abuse was not a failure of the system. It was the system. Terror was both the point of these institutions and their standard operating procedure. Their function in Irish society was to impose social control, particularly on the poor, by acting as a threat."

Patrick Walsh was two years old when he was taken to court with his two brothers, aged three and four, and a sister of six months. Their mother was in an unhappy marriage and had left her husband.

"She was viewed as the guilty party by church and state," Walsh said.

"My father denounced her because she wanted a divorce, which was illegal. We were put in the dock, charged and sentenced for 'having a parent who does not exercise proper guardianship'."

Mr Walsh said that the Christian Brothers order "were men of real violence. When I arrived in Artane in 1963, there were 450 boys and it had a stench of violence about it. The home was also used as a detention centre for young offenders, so we were preyed upon not just by the Brothers but by feral gangs."

He says he was also sexually abused twice by one Christian Brother. His mother's repeated efforts to free her children were refused by the authorities.

"For years we wouldn't believe that she had tried to get us out but she made numerous attempts and was told it was impossible. She had to go back to her husband if she wanted her children."

"I learned in later years that Artane would get a cheque, say for 10,000 pounds, every month from the government.

"Artane would send 8000 pounds to Rome. As a consequence we were badly fed and we worked 12-hour days in the fields and workshops. I was put to work in the shoe shop. Hunger was a constant companion. We were child slaves."

"Ultimately the bishops, the government and the cardinals in the Vatican knew what was going on. It's an opportunity for the hierarchy to make apology for their failure to put an end to the suffering of the children,"

Tom Hayes, 63, was committed into the care system at age two because he was born out of wedlock. He, too, suffered at the hands of the Christian Brothers.

"I was told my mother had died when I was born, but in fact she went to England. I didn't discover the truth until 2003," Hayes says. "Sexual abuse took place on a large scale, operated by gangs who had the protection of the Christian Brothers. After I complained to a priest outside the school about it, I was threatened with being sent to a reformatory school in Letterfrack, which had an even more notorious reputation."

The report says it is impossible to determine the extent of the abuse in boys schools because cases were managed "with a view to minimising the risk of public disclosure and consequent damage to the institution and thecongregation". However it said that "acute and chronic contact and non-contact sexual abuse was reported, including vaginal and anal rape, molestation and voyeurism in both isolated cases and on a regular basis over long periods."

Glin Industrial School, in County Limerick, was where "Brothers with a known propensity for sexual abuse were transferred, indicating a serious indifference to the safety of children."

More than 800 individuals were identified as physical or sexual abusers. However the report's findings will not be used for criminal prosecutions, in part because the Christian Brothers successfully sued the commission in 2004 to keep its members, dead or alive, unnamed in the report.

(Source: The Australian)

 

Employers are using the financial crisis as an excuse to unlawfully sack staff, according to Victoria's chief employment watchdog.

JobWatch head Zana Bytheway said that "in some case companies are being forced to make people redundant, but employees need to be careful to question whether redundancies are legitimate or if they are really being unfairly dismissed."

(Source: MX)

 

Four U.S. contractors from the company formerly known as Blackwater Worldwide fired on an approaching civilian vehicle in Kabul this month, wounding at least two Afghan civilians.

The off-duty contractors were involved in a car accident around 9 p.m. on May 5 and then fired on the approaching vehicle, which they believed to be a threat, according to the U.S. military.

At least some of the men had been drinking alcohol that evening, according to a person familiar with the incident. Off-duty contractors aren't supposed to carry weapons or drink alcohol.

The Xe company, known as Blackwater until February this year, is winding down its guard work in Iraq as the government there is forcing them out after a 2007 shooting incident left 17 Iraqis dead.

The company is counting on offsetting that loss of business, for hundreds of millions of dollars a year, with contracts in Afghanistan.

(Source: Wall Street Journal)

 

American airstrikes have caused the highest single toll of civilian casualties in eight years of war in Afghanistan.

US planes bombed the village of Granai during a battle with Taliban insurgents.

The bombs were so powerful that people were ripped to shreds. Survivors said they collected only pieces of bodies. Several villagers said that they could not distinguish all of the dead and that they never found some of their relatives.

"There was someone's legs, someone's shoulders, someone's hands" a villager said.

Government officials have accepted handwritten lists compiled by the villagers of 147 dead civilians. An independent Afghan human rights group said it had accounts from interviews of 117 dead. American officials say that even 100 is an exaggeration but have yet to issue their own count.

Villagers claim that the Taliban had already left the village when bombing started.

(Source: New York Times)

 

The Department of Immigration tricked a refugee into handing his daughter over for deportation, by telling her she was going on a shopping trip.

The man, who now has a permanent protection visa and lives in Melbourne, arrived in Australia with his four-year-old daughter by boat in March 2001.

In January 2003 the management of the centre acted on allegations about sexual contact between the man and his daughter.

Those allegations were later discredited, but the Ombudsman has found they were the catalyst that led to his complaining of aggressive and abusive behaviour by Immigration staff.

He then served a long period in solitary confinement.

"His only contact with anyone was a 20-minute visit from his daughter every 24 hours," his barrister Julian Burnside QC said.

While he was in his cell the Department of Immigration arranged for his daughter to be sent back to her mother in Iran.

He was told his daughter was being taken on a shopping trip, when she was really being put on a plane back to Iran.

Immigration Department files show that the flight was booked and kept secret. One file note reads: "If she requests to say goodbye to her father, I will advise her that it is not possible, as it could stop her from being returned to her mother in Tehran."

"We will have several toys etc for distraction purposes."

(Source: ABC News website)

 

The Australian military has been accused of killing civilians in Afghanistan and then covering it up.

In July 2006 a group of soldiers opened fire on a family driving in the Oruzgan province. They killed a man, left a woman blind, and wounded a girl, whose leg was later amputated.

Afghan legislator Haji Abdul Khaliq, a relative of the victims, said that "they didn't even give them a bottle of water and they didn't even take them to the hospital."

The chief of the Defence Force, Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, said in 2007 that "we found no substance to the allegation that Australian troops had been involved."

In fact information uncovered by Australian Defence officials in Afghanistan pointed to the involvement of Australian SAS soldiers. This included grid references and a contact report that placed the SAS in the vicinity of the attack on the family. The timing of the Australians' contact also suggested that they had engaged with the 'enemy' about the time the car was hit.

Former Oruzgan governor Hakim Monib says that "when I heard [about the shooting] I contacted the Australian troops...they expressed their sorrow for the incident and they said 'We thought they were the enemy'."

A well-placed source claimed that pressure may have been placed on Australian officials by their colleagues in Afghanistan to bury any details that suggested Australian involvement in the incident.

(Source: The Age)

 

A man who died during protests against the G20 in London was assaulted by riot police shortly before he suffered a heart attack, according to witnesses.

Several witnesses say that Ian Tomlinson, 47, was a victim of police violence in the moments before he collapsed near the Bank of England in the City of London. Three witnesses said that Mr Tomlinson was attacked as he made his way home from work at a
nearby newsagents. One claims he was struck on the head with a baton.

Photographer Anna Branthwaite said: "I can remember seeing Ian Tomlinson. He was rushed from behind by a riot officer with a helmet and shield two or three minutes before he collapsed." Branthwaite, an experienced press photographer, has made a statement to the Independent Police Complaints Commission.

Amiri Howe, 24, recalled seeing Mr Tomlinson being hit "near the head" with a police baton. Howe took one of a sequence of photographs that show a clearly dazed Mr Tomlinson being helped by a bystander.

A female protester, who does not want to be named but has given her testimony to the IPCC, said she saw a man she later recognised as Tomlinson being pushed aggressively from behind by officers. "I saw a man violently propelled forward, as though he'd been flung by the arm, and fall forward on his head.

"He hit the top front area of his head on the pavement. I noticed his fall particularly because it struck me as a horrifically forceful push by a policeman and an especially hard fall; it made me wince."

Mr Tomlinson was not taking part in the protests. Initially, his death was attributed by a police post mortem to natural causes. A City of London police statement said: "[He] suffered a sudden heart attack while on his way home from work."

But this version of events was challenged after witnesses recognised the dead man from photographs.

(Source: The Guardian [UK])

 

Teachers in an American school made students settle their differences by forcing them to fight while they watched, according to investigators.

The investigation of South Oak Cliff High found at least two incidents of students being made to fight in an equipment cage in a boys' locker room.

In the report, a teacher was quoted as saying principal Donald Moten told security personnel to put two fighting students "in the cage and let 'em duke it out."

The report said a hall monitor, Gary King, told investigators he witnessed the head of campus security and an assistant basketball coach place two students in the cage to fight.

Another hall monitor, Reno Savala, told investigators he came upon two students fighting in the cage "bare-fisted with no head or eye protection." Savala said the assistant coach was watching the fight and broke it up when Savala told him to.

(Source: The Age)

 

Some of Victoria's elite private schools will receive millions of dollars to build libraries, sports halls and arts centres in the first round of the Federal Government's $12.4 billion primary schools rebuilding program.

More than $72 million, or 10 per cent of total funding, will go to private schools (not including Catholic schools).

Bialik College in East Hawthorn has been given $3 million to build a primary library, while Kew-based Trinity Grammar will get $2.5 million for a junior school hall. Firbank Grammar School's junior school in Brighton will get $3 million for a classroom complex and Fintona Girls' School will get $850,000.

Last month a seperate federal program, the $1.3 billion National Schools Pride program, rewarded some of Melbourne's wealthiest private schools with hundreds of thousands of dollars for projects such as "beautification of grounds".

(Source: The Age)

 

A woman whose violent estranged husband murdered their two children after being custody of them, says that the lack of any change in the practices of the Family Court makes her feel that the "deaths of my children were in vain."

Dionne Fehring left her husband, former One Nation candidate Jayson Dalton, in 2004, after years of abuse. He applied for custody of the couple's children.

After a 14-minute hearing, which Ms Fehring could not attend as she was in hospital after collapsing due to stress, the court awarded interim custody of the children to Mr Dalton.

"I have no idea why they gave him custody," Ms Fehring said, "and I don't think I'll ever understand it. They were in no danger, they'd been with mum, she was taking care of them with my sister.

"My solicitor knew I was petrified. She told the court there were domestic violence issues and yet the children were handed over to a violent man."

Ms Fehring went back to court when she was well enough, and was given custody. On the day that Mr Dalton was due to hand the children back, he suffocated them with plastic bags before killing himself.

Child abuse expert emeritus professor Freda Briggs, of the University of South Australia, said that "the level of ignorance by judges and [Family Court] staff about child development, domestic violence and sexual abuse is inexcusable."

"Judges ignore DV [domestic violence] because (a) some psychologists tell them that men who bash their wives don't necessarily bash their children and (b) they don't seem to know that witnessing violence is as damaging to children as being a victim of it."

"In five years, I have seen no changes in the way we deal with the deaths of women and children who come through the Family Court" Ms Fehring says.

"We continue to lose these beautiful little children. It rocks me to the core. I have waves of sadness, then anger, that the deaths of my children were in vain."

A petition calling for change has gathered close to 3000 signatures from affected families and professionals. One signatory wrote that "as a community worker providing support to women and children escaping domestic violence, we have significant contact with the Family Court and access orders.

"It has been our organisational experience that the family orders often place the children at risk of emotional, if not physical, abuse.

"It is of upmost priority, for the children involved, to have a closer look at issues of domestic violence when deciding on residency issues."

According to Australian Institute of Criminology research, an average of 25 children were killed by their parents each year between July 1989 and June 2002.

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare reports that there were 317,526 reports of suspected child abuse and neglect made to state and territory authorities in 2007-08.

(Source: The Age)

 

The more often Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support the torture of suspected terrorists, according to a new survey.

54 percent of people who attend services at least once a week said the torture of suspected terrorists is "often" or "sometimes" justified, according to analysis by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

42 percent of people who "seldom or never" go to services agreed.

(Source: CNN website)