Daughter found locked in bathroom for 10 years

Palestinian police have freed a young woman whose father kept her locked in the bathroom of their house for about a decade.

Spokesman Adnan Damiri said the 20-year-old woman was in a "deplorable" condition when she was found on Saturday. Damiri said on Monday it remains unclear why she was locked up.

Baraa Melhem, 20, revealed that she spent the decade by listening to the radio that her father had given her and by eating an apple that she got to eat every day.

Her father locked her up in the bathroom after she ran away from home to escape the torture at the age of 10. The police caught her and brought her back home. Ever since then, her father would lock her up in a bathroom that measured about 3ft-by-3ft. Her father also forced her to sign a statement saying she didn't want to go back to school, she told Daily Mail.

She would be allowed to get out of the bathroom only in the middle of the night so that she could do the house work. She would be locked inside again around dawn. She did not see any sunlight for about a decade.

Baraa was given only a blanket, radio and a razor blade by her father and stepmother, and both of them encouraged her to kill herself, the daily said. The girl was often physically assaulted and her father would shave her head and eyebrows to punish her further.

He would often threaten to rape her till she got pregnant so that he could kill her in the name of honor killing.

After about a decade of torture, the police officials were finally tipped off by an aunt. When she was found locked away in the bathroom, she was wearing tattered clothes that were on the point of degeneration.

Baraa is enjoying her freedom at her mother's place. Her parents were divorced when she was barely 4 years old. Her father got her custody and her mother got the custody of the couple's son. The mother told the daily that she took her son with her because the father used to spray perfume in her son's eyes. At that time, the father never abused his daughter and she thought Baraa would be safe with her father.

The 49-year-old father, an Arab, and her stepmother were detained and handed over to police.

Police spokesman said the father was suspected of physically abusing the young woman. He is being held in a jail pending a court hearing.
 

Midwife harvests placenta, sells as pill

UK: A midwife has taken to picking up women's placentas after births, turning them into health-boosting capsules and selling them to new mothers.

Some poeple, mostly mothers and chefs, have full faith in the nutritional aspects of placenta. The benefits of placenta are enhanced breast milk production and a reduction in the risk of post-natal depression.

For $260, this midwife collects a new mother’s placenta within a few hours of birth, the Daily Mail reported.

The midwife cooks the newly-collected placenta in a steamer, dehydrates it, and grinds the result into a powder which can be easily ingested by swallowing a capsule.

"Taking it in capsule form is certainly more appealing and palatable than the alternative. My customers don’t have to handle it or smell or taste it at all,’ the midwife told the daily.

It is claimed the placenta is a rich source of hormones and chemicals. The benefits if they consume the placenta are well documented, said the midwife.

The lady signs deals with mothers-to-be and as soon as they give birth, the husbands call her up so she can go over quickly and collect the placenta.

The daily also mentioned that UK television chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall caused a raging controversy 14 years ago when he fried a placenta with shallots and garlic and turned it into pate for a television show.

Pilot offloads passenger for saying ‘get lost’

INDIA: As a result of a minor altercation and exchange of heated words between a pilot and a passenger, the latter was thrown off a domestic flight in India recently.

An entrepreneur was deplaned for speaking rudely to the pilot, reported The Times of India.

The incident occured while passengers were waiting to embark on the aircraft via an aero bridge. The passengers were requested to make way for the pilot. This particular businessman refused to do so and exchanged a few heated words with an airline staffer. He told the employee that the pilot should wait for the passengers to board and then get inside the flight.

Once all passengers were seated, this particular man was asked by a security officer to disembark for his 'misbehaviour' with the pilot. The man tried to apologise to the pilot but the latter did not agree and simply said that a formal complaint had been lodged and he would not fly the plane till the rude passenger disembarked.

When other passengers tried to intervene, they were warned to stay away or they too would be deplaned.

The passenger told the daily that he was embarrassed at the situation he found himself in and the airline employees were extremely rude to him and that is when he made the comment 'get lost'.

"As per aviation rules, a pilot can only issue such strict orders when he has any intelligence input about a passenger or feels that his presence can compromise safety," the daily commented.

Wife, daughters hack man to death

INDIA: A woman and her daughters hacked a man to death since they were fed up of his harrassment.

The man would drink heavily every night and go home and pick up a fight with his family, reported The Times of India.

On the fatal night, his family members, comprising three women, his wife, aged 45 and his daughters, aged 25 and 22, could not take it any more and attacked him with a pestle and kitchen knives and silenced him for ever.

The three women have been arrested for their extreme step.

Father chains and starves his children for being disobedient

SINGAPORE: A two-year-old boy and 6-year-old girl were locked inside a bathroom and left to starve by their father. The duo were being punished for their disobedient behaviour.

Fortunately, the sibling's cries of hunger were heard by neighbours who called in the police and helped them rescue the children. The police arrested the father on charges of child abuse, reports Asiaone.com.

The man, 40, had chained his kids before leaving for work around 3pm. The police managed to free them only about 9pm. For six hours, the two children were chained and locked inside the bathroom. They also went without food and water for the entire duration.

Upon investigation it was discovered that the mother had walked out on the father and the kids about a month back.

The police officials provided some food the the children before sending them to a hospital to spend the night under observation of medical specialists. 

Suspected drunk drives into train tunnel

SAN FRANCISCO: A suspected drunken SUV driver drove into a tunnel of the San Francisco rail system and got stuck on the underground tracks, halting this morning's commute for more than two hours, authorities report.

Scott Mitchell, 40, of Sebastapol, Sonoma County, was charged with suspicion of driving under the influence, driving on train tracks and failure to obey a traffic sign, police say.

A witness said Mitchell had been following an eastbound train above ground about 6 a.m. local time and then passed it, entering the westbound tunnel at Duboce and Church streets, the San Francisco Chronicle says. He traveled about a half-mile, almost to Van Ness Street (U.S. 101), before hitting a concrete step and becoming stuck, a police spokesman told the Associated Press.

A San Francisco Municipal Rail spokesman said police had to move the SUV to a siding, and passengers were transported by shuttle buses.

The tunnel appears to be a drunk magnet. In October 2010, another inebriated driver entered the subway and ground to a halt after traveling "quite a distance," but not as far as Mitchell.
 

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