KENYAN POLICE FIRE TEAR GAS AT CHILDREN'S PLAYGROUND
The ABC reported that Kenyan police fired tear gas into a crowd of schoolchildren in Nairobi as the children protested against what they call an illegal confiscation of a playground.
Around 40 armed police, accompanied by dogs, confronted the children, most of whom were aged between eight and 13.
Police were seen firing at least three canisters of tear gas outside the Langata Primary School as several hundred children protested against the plan to turn the playground into a car park. Some of the children carried placards protesting the alleged land seizure.
Activists said they believed eight children were hospitalised for exposure to tear gas and other injuries.A jubilant crowd of children eventually made their way onto the land, where they danced and began an impromptu football match.
CHILDREN GIVEN LIFELONG BAN ON TALKING ABOUT FRACKING
The Guardian has reported that two young children in Pennsylvania have been banned from talking about fracking for the rest of their lives, under a gag order imposed in a settlement reached by their parents with Range Resources Corp, a leading oil and gas company.
The settlement, reached in 2011 but unsealed only last week, barred the Hallowichs' son and daughter, who were then aged 10 and seven, from ever discussing fracking or Marcellus Shale, a leading producer in America's shale gas boom.
The Hallowich family had earlier accused the company of destroying their 10-acre farm in Mount Pleasant, Pennsylvania and putting their children's health in danger. Their property was adjacent to major industrial operations: four gas wells, gas compressor stations, and a waste water pond, which the Hallowich family said contaminated their water supply and caused burning eyes, sore throats and headaches.
TEN-YEAR GAP BETWEEN PALESTINIAN AND ISRAELI LIFE EXPECTANCY
Electronicintifada reports that the life expectancy of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza is about ten years lower than that of persons in present-day Israel. Infant mortality and maternal death rates are also four times higher in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
The data, compiled by Physicians for Human Rights – Israel, reveals the disparities in health, which the organisation says are direct impacts of the Israeli occupation. The data do not include 2014, the year of Israel’s massive assalt on Gaza in which more than 2200 Palestinians were killed.
The report, Divide and Conquer: Inequality in Health, says that in the West Bank and Gaza, an average of 19 babies die per 1000 births, while in Israel, the average is four in 1000. While preventable infectious diseases are the main cause of infant mortality among Palestinians, in Israel this is seldom the case. Twenty-eight out of 100,000 Palestinian mothers living under occupation die during childbirth, contrasted with seven in 100,000 mothers in Israel.
The incidence of infectious diseases is higher in the occupied Palestinian territories than in Israel. Expensive vaccines that prevent Hepatitis A, chickenpox, pneumonia, rotavirus (the common cause of severe diarrhea among infants and young children) and human papillomavirus, which can cause cervical cancer, are not available in the Palestinian territories because of lack of access and cost.
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