You feel a moment. I’m not certain if it’s a second lost or a second gained, but in that moment the Earth stops. It’s the moment you watch a child, a young girl in purple shoes, pull a loaded AK-47 assault rifle from the cab of a pick-up truck.
The child, 9-year-old Brianna, had no ill intentions with the weapon of course. She was simply retrieving the gun for a man she affectionately calls “Uncle Jim”.
He is Jim Foster, a 57-year-old former police officer and the leader of the North Florida Survival Group. The organization teaches children and adults alike to handle weapons, and Jim refers to it as a ‘militia”.
PHOTO BLOG: The Florida militia where children train as survivalists
Reuters gallery: U.S. presidential candidate Mitt Romney and babies
A boy called Amjad was standing next to me. He was shot in the head. I didn’t realize at first that he was dead. He fell forward on his knees, in a praying position. Then I felt a terrible pain. I’d been shot too - in my neck.
Solutions for the “Sandwich Generation” supporting children and parents
How families paying for kids and elderly parents can discover hidden day-care, flex-spending, telecommuting, and financial help. Lauren Young offers leads in this week’s Money Clip.
Illegal “Internet pharmacies” are using social media to market drugs to young people, an international report said on Tuesday.
The International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), which monitors the implementation of U.N. drug control conventions, said illicit drugs as well as prescription medicines were being ordered online from such unscrupulous operations.
“Disturbingly, illegal Internet pharmacies have started to use social media to publicize their websites, which can put large audiences at risk of dangerous products,” INCB President Hamid Ghodse said in a statement accompanying its 2011 report.
Read more: Online pharmacies target youth through social media
Source: reut.rs
Have you seen this little girl?
A Reuters photographer is trying to track down a young survivor of the Japan earthquake and tsunami nearly one year after the March 11 tragedy.
“This picture was taken in Koriyama Sports Complex around midnight on March 12th, 2011,” photographer Kim Kyung-Hoon writes. “I would be very grateful if anyone reading this article could give me any information about her.”
Kyung-Hoon writes: “In a rush to file the picture, I left the scene in a hurry without asking for her personal information such as name, age and where she came from. Asking questions at such a time of confusion would not have resulted in answers from the stunned evacuees; they didn’t even seem to be able to talk.”
If you know anything about this young survivor, please email kyunghoon.kim@thomsonreuters.com.
Read more: Have you seen this Fukushima child?
At least 384 children have been killed during Syria’s 10-month uprising and virtually the same number have been jailed, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Friday.
“As of January 7, 384 children have been killed, most are boys. Some 380 children have been detained, some less than 14 years old,” Rima Salah, acting UNICEF deputy executive director, told reporters in Geneva.
