One killed, 150 hurt in Kenya stampede after electrical blast sparks attack fears

NAIROBI, April 13, 2015:

A panicked student was killed and 150 more were hurt in a stampede on Sunday when an electrical blast sparked fears of a new Islamist attack on a Kenyan university campus.

Some students jumped from as high as the fifth floor of a hostel at the University of Nairobi campus after the pre-dawn explosion, vice-chancellor Peter Mbithi told AFP.

“It was total chaos because we thought now it is our turn after Garissa,” student Michael Njuguna was quoted by Kenyan media as saying.A shocked Kenya is on edge after the April 2 attack by Somalia’s Shebab insurgents on Garissa university that killed 148 people, almost all of them students.Education Minister Jacob Kaimenyi said Sunday’s explosion occurred at around 5.30am while students were sleeping on the university’s Kikuyu campus about 20 kilometres west of the capital.

“A power cable blew up outside the student hostel. The hostel itself was not affected, but the students thought it was an attack,” said Mbithi.“Some students jumped out,” and “there was also a stampede”, said Mbithi.“One student died after jumping from the fifth floor.”Student Spencer Kimani said he jumped out of a window, but only sustained minor injuries.“The blast was so loud, I had to jump out of bed and run,” he said.

About 150 were injured, mostly lightly, while 20 remain in hospital for treatment.

“There is no cause for alarm but we can understand their fears after the recent incident,” Nairobi police chief Benson Kibue said, confirming that a power cable explosion was behind the incident.

The attack in Garissa, a town near the border with Somalia, was the deadliest on Kenyan soil since the 1998 bombing of the US embassy in Nairobi and followed the 2013 Westgate shopping mall massacre in the capital.

THE ECONOMIST...

Imo Police Nab Breakaway MASSOB Members With IED

 
 The Imo State Police Command has arrested two breakaway members of Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), suspected to have fabricated items certified by the command’s Explosive Unit to be Improvised Explosive Device (IED).

The suspect identified as Love Davison, who hails from Aboh Mbaise Local Government Area (LGA) Of Imo State and another Eze Charles were said to have produced the IEDs, in a bid to disrupt peace in the state during Saturday’s Governorship and House of Assembly elections. Parading the suspects at the command headquarters in Owerri, the capital of Imo State in south east Nigeria, the command spokesman, Andrew Enwerem, said the men of the command arrested the suspects following a tip off. He said officials busted the hide-out of the suspects at Umuokirika Ekwereazu in Mbaise LGA of the state and arrested the two suspects.
Mr Enwerem, however, said efforts were being intensified by the police to apprehend the leader of the gang, whose identity is yet to be confirmed.
Recovered from the suspects where drilling machine, gun powder, tins of paint, thread, bucket and other items certified to be components of the IED.
The command has, however, urged the  people of the state to remain calm and come out en masse to exercise their civic rights in Saturday’s elections in the state.
                                                                                                                Channels Television...

Sold by their mother: Shining a light on the child sex trade in Cambodia

 
 When Kieu was 12, her mother asked her to take a job. But not just any job. Kieu was first examined by a doctor, who issued her a "certificate of virginity." She was then delivered to a hotel, where a man raped her for two days.

In 2013, the Freedom Project went to Cambodia with Oscar-winning actress and UNODC Goodwill Ambassador against Human Trafficking, Mira Sorvino. 

In Svay Pak, a notorious child sex trafficking hub in Phnom Penh, Sorvino met Kieu, who was then around 14 years old. She had been rescued from sex trafficking by Agape International Missions (AIM), a non-profit for trafficked and at risk children and teenagers.

Kieu told of how she had been sold aged 12 by her mother to a Khmer man of "maybe more than 50" who had three children of his own, Sorvino explained in her Cambodia journal: "The price set in advance for her virginity: $1,500, though she was ultimately only given $1,000, of which she had to give $400 to the woman who brought her to the man. Her mother used the money to pay down a debt and for food for the fish they raise under their floating house -- their primary income source.

"Beforehand, Kieu said, 'I did not know what the job was and whether it was good for me. I had no idea what to expect. But now I know the job was not good for me.' After she lost her virginity to the man, she felt 'very heartbroken.' Her mother supposedly felt bad too, but still sent her to work in a brothel. Kieu said she did not want to go, but had to. She said, 'They held me like I was in prison.'"

She was kept there for three days, raped by three to six men a day. When she returned home, her mother sent her away for stints in two other brothels, including one 400 kilometers away on the Thai border. When she learned her mother was planning to sell her again, this time for a six-month stretch, she realized she needed to flee her home.

MARIJUANAL: IS IT ECONOMICAL?

For more than 20 years, Jeremy Moberg dreamed of growing cannabis in the sunshine -- without the threat of helicopters or arrest. Now that marijuana is legal in his home state of Washington, he can.
Last year, Moberg started CannaSol Farms, where he is licensed to grow marijuana in Okanogan - a rural area about 4 hours east of Seattle. A self-described “rugged individualist,” he is now one of the 10 biggest producers in the state. Since pot became legal in July, he's grossed almost $1 million in sales.
Yet, the transition from growing a small, illicit crop to commercial scale cultivation hasn't been easy. On top of ensuring the quality of his product and running a sustainable farm, he's been forced to become a businessman - building relationships with retailers, maintaining budgets, managing people, and keeping track of legislative policies and other regulations that impact the industry.
That means these days Moberg is constantly on the phone, working long hours and often on the road, trying to stay ahead in a competitive new marketplace.

Here are journal entries from a day in his life:

Wake up and get my nine-year-old daughter going for her school day. My live-in sales rep, Tyler, is making coffee and eggs. I pay him partially in housing. We need to take breakfast to go as we commute down the mountain to town.

Arrive at CannaSol Farms. I fought tooth and nail to get this farm up and running in time for a 2014 harvest. Most licenses in the state were issued too late for outdoor growers. But we'd rather grow under the sun than use massive amounts of electricity to grow under artificial lighting.

It's exciting to see the plants in one of our greenhouses start to flower. By law, we can grow as much as we can on a limited 21,000 square feet of space - which for us means 2,500 plants currently. Our first harvest will be about 6 to 8 weeks away. Last year, we yielded almost a ton of weed.
The greenhouse manager and I discuss which strains we think will do well in the market. The early season Blue Dream is flowering in another greenhouse. It looks and smells phenomenal.

Phone call from our local soil supplier who says that we are not considered an agriculture business by the state, and therefore, we're not tax exempt. We owe him $5,000 for last year’s sales tax. I write an email to my state representative outlining the issue.

Meeting with Processing and Sales team. Processing complains that there are not enough glass jars to fulfill upcoming orders. We’ve heard from retailers that our glass packaging drives repeat customer visits. We agree to reduce prices on our bagged products, until the glass arrives.

The conversation drifts toward automation and conveyor belts. Right now, it’s a lot of handwork – individually weighing and sealing bags. A large order for 10,000 single gram bags comes in – it’s a decent-sized order but it’s really inefficient to fulfill one-gram units.

I get sample packs together for stops at retail shops and depart for Seattle to catch a plane to Oregon.
People in Oregon will be able to possess marijuana for recreational use starting July 1, but businesses will not get licensed to sell until 2016. As a business owner in next-door Washington, I'm keeping a close eye on this developing market.

Stop in at a new retail store on the way to Seattle. The manager seems excited to carry our sun-grown product, but follow up is key in this industry.

Continue on to Seattle to meet with my marketing director, Andrei. There's a lot more traffic on this side of the state. We get through it just in time to catch the plane to Medford, Oregon.

Head to Williams, Oregon, near the northern California border, to meet some sun growers in the state who are currently providing for the medical market. We're helping them with their branding ahead of upcoming legalization. My advice to them: Brand now, don't wait.

Dinner with the Oregon SunGrown Growers Guild board members. The local growers are apprehensive about the upcoming legalization changes. We give an update on how the Sungrown Growers associations of Washington, Oregon, and California are working together to establish a standard for sustainably grown cannabis.

We show some Oregon growers (still largely in hiding) our branded packaging and marketing; they look at it with a combination of apprehension and interest. Their product currently goes out in bulk, and the dispensaries package it for their patients.
These farmers are still not sure if they want to deal with the complexities of recreationally legal business. The system they have now supports families and a good lifestyle.

We take a break to smoke. I can't run this business and be stoned during the day, and I'm trying to get my employees to understand that, too. But as the day winds down, this Super Silver Haze is a sativa breed of weed that makes you think. It's good for networking and talking business.

Green Leaf Labs gives a talk on marijuana testing. In Washington and Colorado, the law requires all marijuana sold in retail stores to include the THC level on the label. I discuss the prolific THC overstating in Washington. Having 30% or 40% THC on your label would help sales (‘normal’ is 15-25%), but we’re in this for the long haul and don’t want to play that game. Plus, if I really grew something above 30% I’d call the Guinness Book for my prize money.

'Daredevil' has arrived: What's the verdict?

Minor spoilers ahead for the new Netflix series Marvel's "Daredevil."

Justice may be blind, but it's easy to see that Marvel's "Daredevil" is already a hit with fans.

The pitch-black-dark new series streamed its entire first season on Netflix on Friday morning, and the early word is quite good.

Charlie Cox is perfectly cast as blind attorney Matt Murdock, whose nights are consumed with cleaning up the New York neighborhood of Hell's Kitchen while dressed in a black ninjaesque outfit.

As the season unfolds, he heads toward a confrontation with Vincent D'Onofrio's Wilson Fisk, a.k.a. the Kingpin.

Two love interests enter Murdock's life in the form of Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll) and Claire Temple (Rosario Dawson).

Oh, and there's that red suit.

So what do critics think? Quite a lot, with 94% giving it positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes

"Marvel's 'Daredevil,' Netflix's latest offering, is a well-scripted, beautifully acted superhero saga that is surprisingly impressive," said the Philadelphia Inquirer's Tirdad Derakhshani.

"The series stays incredibly faithful to Daredevil's pulp roots and does something delightfully unexpected -- trust its fans enough to spare us a long, drawn-out origin story," said Sadie Gennis of TV Guide.

Early risers on Twitter praised the show as well, especially Cox's performance, as well as a drawn-out, well-choreographed fight scene in episode 2.

Mother in car lake plunge tragedy visits surviving daughter