Police fear internet cult inspires teen suicides

Detectives fear a bizarre suicide craze is sweeping through teenagers in a small town fueled by chat on social networking sites after seven friends took their own lives. As well as the deaths during the last 12 months, several more have attempted suicide and police fear they are being driven by a desire to achieve prestige by having a memorial website set up in their name. Many of the victims had their own web pages on the social networking site Bebo, which they spent hours on each day. After their deaths a special site is set up where friends can leave messages, photographs and videos. Police have visited the parents of every member of a 20-strong group who they are most worried about warning them to keep a close eye on their children.

The latest victim is Natasha Randall, 17, who was found hanged at her family home last Thursday. Within 24 hours two of her friends had tried to kill themselves. One 15-year-old girl was on a life support machine yesterday while the other, also 15, was recovering after slitting her wrists. Police, who are investigating a possible suicide chain, fear the teenagers think it is "cool" to have an internet memorial site and are killing themselves to achieve kudos among their peer group. Within hours of Miss Randall's death, a tribute site called "R.I.P. Tasha" had sprung up with photos, videos and messages. It has 345 members been viewed more than 2,100 times. Her death follows those of Gareth Morgan, 27, Liam Clarke, 20, Thomas Davies, 20, David Dilling, 19, Dale Crole, 18, and Zachary Barnes, 17.

They all seem to be copying each other by wanting to die. I think the problem is they do not know how to speak like adults about serious issues like this. They can speak to each other on the computer but do not know how to express their emotions in other ways."He did go on Bebo and apparently he had a page on there. He must have discussed his other friends dying on there because it had upset him."Like most parents, I have no idea how to get on these sites or what other kids are talking about. But I would warn other parents to beware and to keep a close eye on their children. A police source said: Parents should keep a close watch on what their children are doing on the internet and what they are talking about."It's often easier for them to disclose their real feelings on a computer rather than face to face with an adult or even their friends, and social networking sites are the ideal way to do that." Madeleine Moon, Bridgend MP, has met with senior police officers to discuss Bridgend's alarmingly high suicide rate. The Bridgend and Glamorgan Valleys Coroner, Phillip Walters, has also raised his concerns and a special "task force" has been set up in the town to investigate the problem.

All screens, all the time for British kids

A generation of multi-tasking British children are living their daily lives -- including eating and falling asleep -- to the accompaniment of television, according to a survey of youngsters' media habits. The flickering of the screen accompanies most of them before they go to school, when they return home, as they consume their evening meal and then -- for 63 per cent, far more than read a book each day -- in bed at night. The study of five- to 16-year-olds shows that four out of five children now have a TV set in their bedroom.

So ubiquitous has television become that many children now combine it with other activities, including social networking online, flicking their eyes from laptop to TV screen and back again. Even if they are focusing on the television, young people are now reluctant to commit to one programme, with boys in particular often flipping between channels to keep up with two simultaneous shows at once.

"They flick from one to another and cannot conceive that they should have to make a decision. They are puzzled that you should put them in a situation of having to make one or another choice," said a researcher.

The report, based on interviews with 1147 children in 60 schools around Britain, found TV viewing now averages 2.6 hours a day across the age group, though one in 10 say they watch more than four hours daily. Some 85 per cent access the internet and 72 per cent have visited a social networking site. Communication has overtaken fun (eg online games)as the main reason to use the internet and study is far behind.

Kenya: Post-Election Violence Displaces Over 100,000 Children

Kenya's bishops appealed to their countrymen to stop the "senseless killing of our brothers and sisters" and asked for an investigation into the December 27 elections that sparked violence. In a statement released Wednesday and signed by the archbishop of Nairobi, Cardinal John Njue, the Kenyan prelates said they witnessed "with deep sorrow and concern the outbreak of violence and the breakdown of law and order that has led to numerous deaths, injuries and destruction of property, creating fear and helplessness that has led many to flee from their homes. Kenya erupted in violence after the general elections were decried as rigged. Incumbent President Mwai Kibaki, 76, was sworn in for another term just a few minutes after his alleged victory was announced. Some 500 people have been killed and thousands more displaced in the violence. Though the conflict sprung from the election, it has taken on tones of ethnic cleansing, with tribal fighting between the president's Kikuyu people and opposition leader Raila Odinga's Luo tribe, with other tribes joining in. 

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) estimates that at least 100,000 children have been forced to flee their homes due to the wave of violence that swept through Kenya following last month's disputed elections.The agency said that as many as 75,000 children are now residing in over 100 camps for internally displaced persons, while many thousands more children are believed to be living temporarily with other family members. Almost 600 people have lost their lives and some 255,000 others displaced during the crisis which began after President Mwai Kibaki was declared the winner over opposition leader Raila Odinga in the country's polls late last December.

UNICEF has prioritized the provision of life-saving interventions - including water, sanitation, shelter and nutrition - as well as the protection of children and facilitating their return to school. In the largest camps in the capital Nairobi and the western towns of Nakuru and Eldoret, the agency has established water and sanitation facilities by providing temporary latrines, water storage tanks, buckets and chlorine. So many have camped in the Eldoret Catholic diocese's Cathedral helped by the local Bishop Cornelius Korir. This is expected to help 50,000 people. Also in Kisumu and Eldoret, UNICEF is sending emergency health supplies to benefit more than 100,000 people. It is assisting Kenya's Ministry of Health to operate screening centres in camps to identify and treat malnourished children. An emergency polio and measles vaccination programme, de-worming and vitamin A distribution are also underway.

Huge turnout in Madrid affirms the family

Recognizing and fostering "the marvellous reality of the indissoluble marriage between man and woman", is "one of the greatest services which can be rendered nowadays to the common good and to the authentic development of individuals and societies, as well as the best means of ensuring the dignity, equality and true freedom of the human person".

A huge family rally in Spain on the Sunday after Christmas got minor coverage in the international media but sent an unmistakable message to a Spanish government that has legalised homosexual "marriage", mandated pro-homosexual instruction in schools and made divorce easier. According to organisers, more than one-and-a-half million people gathered in central Madrid, where they heard speeches from church leaders and other public figures.

Pope Benedict addressed the Family Encounter (Encuentro de las Familias) in a live video link, saying that the family "founded on the indissoluble union between man and woman … is the place in which human life is sheltered and protected from its beginning until its natural end." The pope also said it was "worthwhile to fight for the family and marriage because it is worthwhile to work for the human being, the most precious thing created by God."

Spain has one of the world's lowest birth rates, thanks, in part, to an abortion rate that has climbed to over 100,000 annually since legalisation in 1985. In the last month the Spanish media has reported numerous cases of illegal late-term abortions, and one channel actually broadcast footage of two such procedures. Several abortion clinics in Madrid and Barcelona have been shut down and several doctors and clinic personnel are being prosecuted.