A report from BBC news says Police in eastern Ukraine
have arrested a teacher accused of trying to sell a 13-year-old girl for
$10,000 (£8,035).
The girl was
living at a boarding school in the Kharkiv region for orphans and children from
broken homes.
Ukrainian Interior
Minister Arsen Avakov reported the case on Facebook, with photos of the
52-year-old teacher and girl. He said police had been monitoring them for four
months.
Mr Avakov said the
buyer hinted that the girl's organs would be removed. The buyer inquired
about the girl's health and paid the teacher 1,000 hryvnia (£31; $39) for
photos of the girl and her medical records, Mr Avakov said.
Ukrainian media
have named the suspect as Galina Kovalenko. She teaches the Ukrainian and
Russian languages, and literature, and has more than 20 years' teaching
experience, they report.
There has been no
statement yet from the teacher.
Mr Avakov said "Galina (Kovalenko) worked for nearly a year on her 'business plan' for selling the
13-year-old girl", whom she had singled out as vulnerable.
"They
got this seller 'red-handed' - when she took the girl out of the boarding
school, brought her to the buyers and received money," Mr Avakov said.
If
found guilty, the teacher could be jailed for up to 12 years. Mr Avakov is
personally handling the case.
There
have been previous reports of criminal gangs preying on destitute people in
eastern Europe to harvest their organs. The trade in organs can be highly
lucrative.
In
2013, an EU-led court in Kosovo found five people guilty in connection with a
human organ-trafficking ring. The five were accused of carrying out dozens of
illegal transplants at the Medicus Clinic in the capital, Pristina.
We have heard
countless number of times the various health benefits of garlic and many other
herbs. Nevertheless, what we rarely hear is that there indeed exists some form
of toxic garlic out there which many people are unaware of because for many of
us, ‘garlic is garlic’.
It is said that
less than 10 years ago, all ofthe garlic
in the US was grown in California until they started importing from growers in China
thereby reducing the California grown garlic in the US less by 40% and more than 60% imported from China and also putting a lot of
California growers out of business.
Now the question
would be “how do we recognise the good from the bad? Or how do you spot the difference
between the toxic and the non-toxic?
So before you go chewing,
swallowing and gulping just any garlic, read this first as culled from omigy.
If all of the
roots have been removed, and a clean, concave spot is left, that means the
garlic is Chinese. All of this is required by the Agriculture Department
in order to prevent plant diseases which are soil- born to enter the country.
And if the roots
are still there, then it is a Californian garlic. It is proven that not a
single garlic grower from California cuts out the roots.
But,
unfortunately, China is dealing with a great issue of quality control. This is
because most of the Chinese farmers use illegal and mostly harmful pesticides
in order to make their crops grow.
One undercover
magazine reporter found out that many of the vegetable farms there use
parathion and phorate, two types of pesticides which are literally banned by
the government. They do this just to irrigate the crops and save some effort
and time.
These two
pesticides have been marked as toxic! The second major factor for the bad
quality of the foods imported from China is their soil. China is facing a
major pollution problem.
Their soil by
itself is toxic, meaning that it creates major health problems. Some official
government reports show that a fifth of the soil in China is contaminated by
some heavy metals and an unhealthy amounts of fertilizers and pesticides.
This form of
severe pollution has even contaminated the rivers in China, filling them up
with household waste and industrial chemicals.But, how to spot the garlic from
China?
Please beware and make sure that what you’re buying is not a garlic imported
from China. It is filled with bleach, and a lot of other chemicals which are
extremely bad for your health.
So, here is what
you have to do the next time you go to the supermarket. First, if there are roots
or stem on the garlic, then it is safe.
China always makes
sure to cut off the stem and the roots so that the weight would be decreased
when they are shipped over the sea.
Second, the
heavier and bulkier garlic is also safe. The imported kind of garlic is smaller
and weighs less.Next, the garlic which is healthier and grown here, in
California has a fuller and richer taste.
When put on a
flavor measuring scale, one big homegrown garlic measures out 40 out of 40, and
the imported garlic measures only 28 out of 40.
Finally (and we
all know this one) – the best way to make sure that your garlic is safe an healthy
is if you buy it from a local market or grow it in your own home.
A few hours ago, the BBC carried a media reports that US
rapper Kanye West has been taken to hospital following an emergency services call.
A police
spokesperson told the BBC they had received a "disturbance call" on
Monday afternoon, but did not name the singer. The disturbance
was later deemed a medical incident, he said, and the fire department
responded.
A spokesman for
the LA Fire Department said an unnamed man had been taken to hospital for
"further assessment".
"At 13:20
Pacific Time, the Los Angeles Fire Department responded to an unspecified
medical aid request," a spokesperson for the service said. "An adult
male described as medically stable was taken to an area hospital for further
assessment."
West's wife Kim
Kardashian West was photographed getting off a private jet at Van Nuys Airport
in Los Angeles a few hours after he was taken to hospital.
Further details of
the incident naming West varied in conflicting reports from multiple news
sources.
NBC News said
officers had been responding to a "medical welfare call" and the
decision to hospitalise West was for his own health and safety, citing
"multiple authorities familiar with the case".
Gossip website TMZ
said that West was taken to hospital for "psychiatric evaluation" and
had been seeking treatment for "severe sleep deprivation".
The Los Angeles
Times reported that there had been a 911 call from the address, citing a fire
department source.
Neither West nor
his representatives have made an official statement about the incident.
Before news broke of West's hospital
treatment, Kim Kardashian West's mother, Kris Jenner, spoke to US media about
the rapper's reasons for cancelling his shows.
"He's
exhausted, he's just really tired. He's had a gruelling tour and it's been a
grind so he just needs some rest," she told US TV show Extra.
Some
celebrities took to social media to voice their concern and offer well wishes
to West.
Rapper
9th Wonder tweeted: "Been knowing the brother upwards of 13 years. Mental
healing is a serious thing, no matter what. Stay strong Kanye West."
US
actor and comedian Ronald Funches wrote: "I wish Kanye West love and
support through his journey. Mental health is no joke and a constant battle and
I hope he makes more dope music."
Chance
The Rapper, who was performing in BBC Radio 1Xtra's Live Lounge on Tuesday,
began a song by saying: "I want to extend a very special prayer to my big
brother Kanye West."
Kardashian West was expected to
appear at a New York City social event on Monday - her first public appearance
since she was robbed in Paris in October - but she did not attend.
The
rapper had cancelled all remaining dates on his current tour after abandoning a
Sacramento performance at the weekend.
He
had performed just three songs on Saturday night, before embarking on an
unscripted rant, criticising Facebook, Jay Z and Hillary Clinton.
He
criticised Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg for failing to give him $53m (£42.5m)
to get out of debt and said he was hurt that Jay Z failed to visit his family
after last month's robbery.
West
then appeared to suggest that Jay Z employed hit men, saying: "Jay Z, I
know you got killers, please don't send them at my head."
"Get
ready to have a field day, press, because the show's over," he said, as he
dropped his microphone and walked out.
His
promoter, Live Nation, has announced refunds for all tickets from the show.
No
reason has been given for the cancellation of the remaining dates.
