Sinlung

'Corrective rape' haunts South Africa

Luleki Sizwe project is a charity that assists victims of ‘corrective rape’ a new form of crime that has spread terror in South Africa. Campaigners came out to call for direct retaliatory action, post the rape of a 13-year-old victim.

Government officials said the young victim’s case is being investigated by the police and she is receiving support.

The victim was raped in Pretoria for being open about her sexuality. Lesbians are being targeted and campaigners have revealed that more than 10 lesbians are reported to be raped or gang raped every week in Cape Town alone.

The so-called ‘corrective rape’ is on the increase in South Africa and some have even been raped at gunpoint.

These lesbian women are supposedly raped to “cure” them of their sexual orientation.

Eudy Simelane’s tragic death was an eye opener for everyone. A South African footballer who played for the South African women’s national football team, Eudy was an LGBT rights activist.

Her partially-clothed body was recovered in a creek in KwaThema, her hometown. She was brutally gang raped, beaten, and stabbed 25 times in the face, chest and legs. She became a victim of the practice of ‘corrective rape’, which is widespread in South Africa.

There have been many more victims of corrective rape. 20-year-old Nokuthula Radebe’s body was found in Soweto in March this year, and Sizakele Sigasa and Salome Masooa were raped and murdered in 2007.

A country which has legalised gay marriage is now haunted by an epidemic of brutal homophobic attacks. 170,000 people signed an online petition demanding action against corrective rape - a record for a campaign on a social change website.

10 great classes to take while traveling

While some are content to settle for the tourist hotspots traveling the world, others are constantly in search of the authentic experience. These ten classes collected by Jane Leung at CNN-GO offer a meeting point halfway in between where travelers can admit they’re tourists but also receive a unique insight on the local culture.

Manga drawing, Fukuoka, Japan

WAHAHA may sound like an awkward transition from crying to laughing, but it’s actually the name of a short-term study school in Fukuoka, Japan.
The school’s two-week manga course includes two hours of manga drawing and three hours of Japanese language lessons, per day.
Students come away with the skills to make their own manga comic, learning how to develop stories, characters, render onomatopoeia, draw backgrounds and more…
Cheesemaking, Wisconsin, United States

…An authentic, all-American homemade cheese experience in Edam Eden waits wannabe churners at The Cheese Maker, located in the cozy home of Steve and Mary Shapson in Mequon, Wisconsin.
The Shapsons' hands-on, three-day courses teach lovers of edible bacteria the craft of making and understanding Camembert, baby Brie, bleu, chevre, mozzarella, ricotta and feta…
Jungle Survival, Guyana

…An initial “training phase” takes place at your shelter where you'll be sleeping in a hammock for the next week. Here, you learn basic survival skills: finding water, making shelter, lighting a fire and finding a meal (including tasty bugs and fishing for Piranha).
Then comes the “isolation phase” where you’ll be separated into singles or pairs, and learn to survive in the jungle -- with nothing but the clothes off your back, a machete, bow and arrow and belt kit…

Full story at CNN GO.

Israeli women strip in support of Egypt blogger

Dozens of Israeli women stripped off their clothes in a show of solidarity with the 20-year-old Egyptian blogger who caused a stir in the Arab world when she posted a naked photo of herself in protest against the limits on free expression in her country.

Touched by the spirited protest measure, some 40 Israelis posed for a nude group shot in support of the Egyptian activist, Aliaa Magda Elmahdy, who received threats and harsh criticism for her actions. Unlike Elmahdy, however, the Israeli women did not fully display their intimate parts for the camera.

Controversial: Aliaa Elmahdy invited threats after she posed nude on
her blog

The brains behind the operation is Or Tepler, who opened a Facebook event inviting women "to show support in a non-violent and legitimate way for a woman who is just like us -- young, ambitious, full of dreams and evidently has a developed sense of humour."

"Girls, let's give the world a good reason to see the unique beauty of Israeli women," Tepler wrote. "Regardless of whether they are Jewish, Arab, straight or Lesbian -- because here, as of now, it doesn't matter. Let us show the doubters that our international discourse doesn't depend on governments."

More than 100 women attended the event. The participants were photographed holding a sign saying 'Love without Limits,' and 'Homage to Aliaa Elmahdy. Sisters in Israel.'

"I didn't expect that she would get the response that she got. It got on my nerves that she received a quarter of a million abusive comments and death threats," said Tepler.

Facebook fiasco: Two lakh accounts hacked in 24 hrs

By: Sheetal Sukhija
Date: 2011-11-16
Place: Bangalore

Users of the popular social networking site woke up to a harsh reality yesterday when they found their pictures morphed, put on pornographic sites and feeds sent to friends; experts fear this may bring about site's downfall
Over two lakh city Facebook users woke up to a social media embarrassment yesterday morning as their accounts had been hacked and weblinks to their morphed pornographic pictures sent as feeds to friends and family.

According to global media reports, more than 60 lakh Facebook accounts were hacked since Sunday night. Social networking analysts have claimed that officially more than 2 lakh Bangalore Facebook accounts were hacked.
The cyber crime department has received many calls and complaints regarding the mass hacking. They have started preliminary investigations in a few cases too.
All Porn and gore
A resident of Koramangala logged on to her Facebook account yesterday morning from a cyber caf ©, only to get the shock of her life. "My mother, brother and 19 friends of mine had rebuked me after reading my status message.
It had a link to a website, and on clicking I saw my face morphed and pasted onto the body of a porn star. My name and details were also available on the website. I called the police, but they directed me to the cyber crime police station," said Kamini Varma (name changed).
Kamini's last post said that she was quitting the popular social networking site after being embarrassed amongst their friends. There were around 50 other posts on Facebook that stated the users are quitting the social networking site forever after being embarrassed before friends and family.
"The website is no longer safe. My friend had posted a link to a news report claiming to have been published in a popular newspaper on my page on Sunday. Since the title said 'Party till the wee hours' I got excited and clicked on it but nothing appeared. The next day I logged on to find that everything had changed.
My female friends alleged that I had stolen photos from their account and sold it to porn sites. Others had called me a 'porn addict' and many others left abusive messages. I immediately deactivated my account," said Shivam Shah, student (name changed).
Following this huge incident, many social media experts huddled up and debated if this would lead to the eventual downfall of Facebook now.
"Orkut fell in the same fashion. As much as Orkut officials claimed that Facebook had beaten it in popularity, many reports nail the fact that consistent hacking on the social networking site for over six months (before Facebook became popular) had led to its immediate downfall and eventual social death.
Facebook seems to be headed in the same direction, unless there is some sort of immediate and strict measures taken by Facebook," said Suhas Giri, a city-based popular social media expert.
Meanwhile, Facebook put up a set of guidelines for users who had either been hacked, or heard of such incidents. The official Facebook Security blog post said, "Security and safety are at the core of Facebook.
We have entire teams dedicated to building tools that give people even more control over their account, and specifically the way they access their information. In fact, many of our most talented engineers are working exclusively on creating a secure environment on Facebook."
Analysts further asserted that in spite of such incidents, users seldom bother taking the security measures seriously, until being personally victimised.
Thousands of users like Kamini and Shivam have decided to shun the habit of talking wall-to- wall and return to the good-old practice of talking to people face-to-face.
Top 3 spam links that helped hack accounts
'Bangalore police: Party till the wee hours, 11.30 PM ban lifted'. Clicking on this link leads you to a page with a
photo of a popular pub in town, with a caption questioning the user 'You really think this could happen?' After clicking on the link, the user's account is hacked and sends out a series of unstoppable torrents of XXX porn to all of the user's friends. Over 12,000 Bangaloreans reportedly fell for this spam.
'Date a stripper in Bangalore'. Clicking on this link automatically transfers all the photos from the user's account and posts them on a porn website. The link to this porn website is then set as the user's FB status message and posted on newsfeeds of all the user's friends. Over 500 Bangaloreans fell for this spam.
Popular Sandalwood actress raped and murdered Social media analysts suspect that this was a prank link created by a small group of users, following the fad of series of spam links posted through the course of the day. The link leads a user to various soft porn videos from South Indian movies, posted on www.youtube.com. Over 2,500 Bangaloreans fell for this spam.
Embarrassed users commit 'social suicide'
Over 700 Bangaloreans claim to have deleted their Facebook accounts and many have urged their friends to do the same. "I officially declared to my friends at college that I'd committed social suicide and have vowed not to ever join any social networking site," said Sandeep Jain, a Christ University student.
Another student from Jyoti Nivas College, who fell to an infamous hack claiming that a prominent Kannada film actress had been raped and murdered, claimed to be mortally scared of new media. "The same thing happened to me on Orkut three years ago.
My account got hacked and all my photos got pulled into a huge group called 'sexually active community in Bangalore'. I started getting requests to spend nights with strangers. Frustrated, I deleted my account.
People told me Facebook was safer. Now, this has happened to me once again. I'm off Facebook too now and I'm scared of the Internet altogether," said K R Rohini, a communications professional (name changed).

Jobs

Drinkify matches booze to tunes

Steak and cabernet sauvignon. Strawberries and champagne. Busta Rhymes and Courvoisier? Alcohol just begs for a pairing, and now your booze can find a suitable music match with Drinkify.
Drinkify pairs your music selection with the perfect alcoholic beverage. For example, in the mood for Adele? Drinkify suggests pairing her smoky vocal stylings with 2 oz vodka, 2 oz coconut milk, and an ounce of honey. Delicious.

(Surprisingly, if you type in "Nickleback," Drinkify doesn't suggest a vodka-soaked tampon.)
Via Jezebel.

Teen drinking trend: Vodka-soaked tampons

Between sniffing bath salts and pouring booze in eyeballs, you would think teenagers have run out of ridiculous ways to get wasted, but you would be wrong.
The latest trend in teen intoxication involves soaking a tampon in vodka (you can figure out the rest). The cringe-worthy booze fad has gained popularity because of the powerful, sustained drunkenness that happens when alcohol goes directly into the bloodstream.
Phoenix news station KPHO talked with a local school resource officer to determine if vodka tampons were a real thing or just another urban legend. Officer Chris Thomas told the station, “There's been documented cases of people going to the hospital with alcohol poisoning just from utilizing it that way.” He added that “this is definitely not just girls.”
Full story at KPHO.

Escape from the digital world

Via Thought Balloon Helium.

Lolong Is World's Biggest Crocodile: National Geographic

A town in the Philippines hungry for a little attention claims that a huge saltwater crocodile caught two months ago is the biggest ever.
Lolong, a 21-foot 4-inch big boy, is the pride and joy of Bunawan, where town officials claims their favorite pet reptile should be crowned king of the crocs, according to GMANews.com.
A town council member said Lolong -- who was captured by hunters after reports of attacks on residents and livestock -- is allegedly about three feet longer than Cassius, an Australian crocodile recognized by Guinness World Records as number one, The Telegraph reports.
Adam Britton, an Australian zoologist who measured Cassius at 17 feet, 11 inches in 2008, stretched at the tape measure for Lolong too.
A spokesperson for Guinness said it was looking into the town's claim.
Locals hope to turn Lolong into a toothsome tourist attraction, while animal rights critics want to see the big fella released from captivity.

That’s one way of using your spare change! Man stacks 3,118 coins on a single dime

If there was an award for the world’s most patient man, he would definitely win it.
Instead, Tai Star has settled for the record holder of the most coins stacked on a single dime.
Star, from Tucson, Arizona, spent seven hours building a tower of 3,118 coins on a dime.

Time well spent: Tai Star broke the record for the number of coins on a dime
The impressive structure consisted of 600 quarters, 501 dimes, 313 nickels, 1699 pennies and five foreign coins.
He starts with the single dime and places it near the edge of a table.
Star explained: ‘It is on the very corner for a few reasons: to make it easy to see that it is on one dime and I think the structure of the table is most sturdy there – plus I just like precarious balance.’
Then, over the course of seven hours, he begins stacking coins on the dime in a circular shape.

Spare change: Star used hundreds of quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies

Patience: Star puts a dime on the corner of the table and begins on the structure
On website RecordSetting.com, where he uploaded a video of the feat, he explained he used ‘three dimes on a quarter for four layers, then a bigger coin for four layers, then a ring of dime for at least four layers, and next size coins, pennies nickels quarters. Then more dimes, and so on...’
At one point, the coins fall before he patiently gets to work replacing them.
When the vase-shape structure is complete, he drops in a handful of coins, including a British five pence and a Spanish peso.
With the achievement, the meticulous stacker broke other records on the site – all previously set by him. His first was 469, followed by 1,700.

Precarious: Even when part of the structure falls, Star continues adding coins

Almost there: Once the structure is finished, he adds a few extra coins
Star holds 11 other records on the website.
He has set the record for the Longest Time To Balance A Drumstick On Finger While Balancing On An Exercise Ball with 28.83 seconds, and the Tallest Coin Tower using 117 quarters.