http://www.freechild.org/Firestarter/contents/FS1001.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4268796.stm
Three teenagers arrested for firework death
Three teenagers have been arrested in connection with the death of a mother who died after a firework was pushed through her letterbox, setting her house ablaze.
Mary Fox, 59, who had nine children, was trapped in her bedroom after reportedly pushing her son Raum, 17, to safety through an upstairs window as flames engulfed the house.
The youths, two aged 17 and one of 18, are all from Bodmin in Cornwall.
The remnants of a firework were found behind the front door of Mrs Fox's house in Carpenter Court, Wallace Road, Bodmin.
The three were arrested on suspicion of murder and are in custody at Launceston police station.
After leaping from the three-storey house, Raum ran to alert neighbours that his mother was still trapped inside. Firefighters found Mrs Fox dead in the same room from which her son escaped.
Officers have investigated claims that Raum, who has learning difficulties, was being bullied at school and that the family was targeted by youths who had been throwing fireworks in the street.
It is thought Raum moved from Bodmin College to St Austell College because of bullying.
But Devon and Cornwall police said there is no obvious evidence that Mrs Fox or Raum had been victims of bullying after speaking to schools and social services.
They were held in custody after detectives said they found clues on Facebook to what is being treated as murder. Officers acted on reports suggesting people had posted the suspects' names on the internet.
RE teacher sentenced for sex with teenager
A religious education teacher will be sentenced today for having sex with a teenage boy.
Madeleine Martin, 39, admitted the relationship with the youth, who was under 16 at the time, when she appeared in court in September.
Martin, of Grassfield Way, Knutsford, Cheshire, pleaded guilty to 10 counts of engaging in sexual activity with the boy in February this year.
She was warned she faced a custodial sentence.
Martin was also suspended from her job at a Greater Manchester school, which cannot be named for legal reasons.
Sentencing is at Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court.
Teenage boy stabbed to death in south London
Detectives said today they had launched a murder investigation after a teenage boy was stabbed to death in a south London park.
Officers were called to Larkhall Park in Lambeth yesterday evening after two teenage boys were seen with injuries.
One was pronounced dead at the scene while the other was taken to hospital where his condition was described as stable.
Four men have been arrested in connection with the incident and detectives said they were keeping an open mind as to the motive.
Teenager who set girlfriend on fire found guilty of 'barbaric and evil' murder
Killing of Jessica McCagh, 17, will 'deeply disturb' all right-thinking people, says judge
A teenager who doused his girlfriend in petrol and set her on fire was found guilty of her "barbaric and evil" murder today.
Jessica McCagh, 17, became engulfed in a ball of flames when Stewart Blackburn set her alight in the bedroom of his flat in Arbroath, Angus, in April this year.
A jury took less than two hours to find Blackburn, 18, guilty of murder after a 10-day trial at the high court in Livingston, West Lothian. Judge Lord Bracadale said Jessica suffered a "terrible death" at her boyfriend's hands. He said the crime would "deeply disturb" all right-thinking people.
He told Blackburn: "The jury have found you guilty of the murder of Jessica McCagh by throwing petrol over her and setting her alight.
"She was your girlfriend, aged 17 years, and she died a terrible death at your hands. Her family are left bereft. These acts demonstrate a degree of wickedness on your part which will leave all right-thinking people deeply disturbed."
Solicitor general Frank Mulholland QC, prosecuting, yesterday told jurors: "It is difficult to envisage more cruel or sadistic treatment of another human being."
He said Blackburn had committed "a barbaric and evil act against a defenceless young woman".
Friends risked their lives trying to save teenager crushed in cave, inquest told
Inquest hears how boy, 16, was crushed to death when cave roof collapsed after he fell asleep near a camp fire during a party
Aiden Brookes' friends risked their lives to heave a slab of sandstone off him and drag him out, but they could not save him. He died from multiple injuries suffered in the Hermitage caves in Bridgnorth, Shropshire, early on 6 April following the collapse, which is thought to have been triggered by the heat of the camp fire.
A geologist said that a pre-existing weakness in the "shoulder" of the 1,000-year-old cave had combined with the heat of the fire to cause around 200kg of rock to sheer away.
Zakk Griffiths and Philip West have been nominated for Royal Humane Society awards for their efforts to help their friend.
Griffiths told the inquest in Bridgnorth how they went into the cave following the collapse. After helping to remove the slab, they lifted the teenager out of the cave and tried to resuscitate him while paramedics hurried to the scene.
Nineteen-year-old Jessica Wright said she had also been struck by the rockfall, which happened at about 2.20am.
She said: "At the point where the cave collapsed, Aiden was lying in front of the fire. He was smiling and asleep. I got up to change the music over when I heard this deafening rumble and I just remember falling face forward."
A verdict of accidental death was recorded by the South Shropshire coroner, Anthony Sibcy.
Teenager charged with murder
A teenager has been charged with the murder of a mother-of-two who was found dying in a west London street with one of her hands cut off.
Geeta Aulakh, 28, was found fatally injured by a passerby in Greenford on Monday evening, a week ago. A postmortem examination gave the cause of her death as severe head injury.
Sher Singh, 18, of Southall, was charged with her murder yesterday and will appear at Ealing magistrates court today. Eleven other men, including Aulakh's husband Harpreet, were released on bail.
Meanwhile two men have been charged with the murder of a teenager who was stabbed and run over by a car.
Michael McCarthy, 19, was attacked on Thursday evening in Stoke Newington, north London. Mustafa Demirtas and Julian Edwards, both 20 and from north London, have been charged with his murder and are due to appear at Thames magistrates court today.
Detectives launched a murder inquiry today after a teenager was found fatally stabbed in a north London street.
Passersby found the 19-year-old, who has not been named, collapsed in Stoke Newington late yesterday and called the emergency services. Paramedics arrived shortly before 11pm and he was pronounced dead at the scene.
Police said the incident followed an altercation between the teenager and two male suspects. They are looking for a silver vehicle that left the scene shortly afterwards and turned into Church Street. A spokesman said investigators from the homicide and serious crime command would lead the inquiry.
He is the 12th teenager to be murdered in the capital this year and the ninth to be stabbed to death – two died in arson attacks and one in a fatal shooting.
Official figures show that the numbers of young people killed and seriously injured by knives have fallen dramatically this year since the Metropolitan police increased stop and search operations to identify those carrying knives. There were 28 youth murders in January to October last year, compared with 11 during 2009.The number of youths aged between 10 and 17 searched by police rose from 123,819 in 2007/8, to 185,489 in the 12 months to March 2009.
The last teenager to be murdered this year was rapper Carl Beatson Asiedu, 19, of Norbury, south London, who was fatally stabbed after playing a gig at Club Life in Kennington in August.
Since June, at least one teenager a month has been murdered. The stabbing victims this year include: Jahmal Mason-Blair, 17, who died in May in Hackney, east London, Adam Pervaiz, 18, who died the same month in Deptford, south-east London, Shay Ogunyemi, 16, died near Larkhall Park, Lambeth. Two brothers were later charged with murder.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/nov/20/teenager-fatally-stabbed-street
"My little brother and his friends were hanging around in groups and had nothing to do. There was violence between the white community and the Asian community and people like me, Somali kids, were sort of in the middle. I didn't want to see them following in the footsteps of others, younger boys looking up to the older ones and thinking that gangs were the thing to do."
That's when youth charity Envision turned up. The organisation works with hundreds of teenagers, predominantly in London, and helps them take leading roles in shaping their communities. Unlike most volunteering organisations, it doesn't tell them what to do. Instead, it supports them in all their ideas - good and bad - and teaches them how to negotiate the roadblocks of officialdom which stand in the way. In the case of Sharmarke, he wanted to set up a sports club, based around the martial arts he enjoys, to provide a focus and discipline for younger teenagers at risk of getting into gang culture.
Run on a shoe string budget, the project eventually attracted up to 40 people per session - 40 people who could very well have been hanging around on the streets. As a result, gang culture may be a little bit weaker today in one area of north London than it was two years ago."We believe that young people have the ideas and we want to take their ideas and turn them into action," says James Williams of Envision."You don't know what's going to work sometimes because every school or community is different. But it's about being willing to put some trust [as adults] in someone's ideas."
Teen Dies In London Stabbing (2007)
Two people have been arrested after a 15-year-old boy was stabbed to death in east London. The attack which happened around 11pm last night in Whitwell Road, Plaistow. Police officers on a routine patrol came across a large group of youths who fled when they approached.
They discovered a male youth with stab wounds to the chest. He was taken to Royal London hospital, but died less than an hour later from his injuries.
The Metropolitan Police said two people were arrested in the early hours of Sunday morning and the boy's next of kin have been informed. Detectives from the Met's Homicide and Serious Crime Command unit say they are unsure exactly how the boy came to be injured, and are keeping an "open mind" about what happened.
Forensic officers are currently carrying out a fingertip search of the area. A post-mortem is due to be carried out later. In a separate attack, a 14-year-old boy was shot in the head in Tulse Hill, south London. Police said his injuries are not thought to be life-threatening.
A 16-year-old boy was also shot but suffered only a grazed arm.
http://www.femalefirst.co.uk/parenting/Teen+Dies+In+London+Stabbing-1100.html
A snail could crawl the entire length of the Great Wall of China in just slightly more time than the 200 years it will take for women to be equally represented in parliament. That was just one of a series of striking statistics from the Equality and Human Rights Commission in their Sex and Power report published last week.
It added that women hold just 11% of FTSE directorships, with the judiciary and others also strongly criticised. At the BBC, the figures are a bit better - almost 38% of all senior managers are women - but it does bring into sharp focus the challenge the whole media industry is facing to improve diversity among its workforce.
Tomorrow's Guardian Ethnic Media Summit is a chance to debate what is arguably our most pressing diversity issue - ensuring more talent from ethnic minority communities reaches the upper echelons of broadcasting. The growth particularly of young ethnic minority audiences, is soaring - way above the population average - making them a critical cultural and business challenge for everyone in our sector.
Things are definitely changing but still not quickly enough. The whole media industry needs to look afresh at what more can be done.
So why does a white, middle-aged bloke like me feel compelled to write about this? As the BBC's chief creative officer, overseeing our programme production made in-house, I believe passionately that only by drawing on the talents of every part of society can we best reflect the lives and concerns of our diverse audiences on screen.
We must do more and the BBC is certainly redoubling its efforts. And though ethnicity is very important, it is only one part of this story. We must also think in terms of age, disability, gender, social class and regional difference.
That is why I think the historic changes to move a significant proportion of BBC network production out of London to places such as Glasgow or North West England over the next decade might be key to all this.
We will transfer large numbers of staff from London but we will also recruit many new faces - a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to add something substantially new to our gene pool of talent, to change the BBC's DNA a little.
We seem to be moving in the right direction, increasing opportunities for people from ethnic minority backgrounds at most levels.
The proportion of our staff from ethnic minorities is 11.5% - again comparing very well with both public and private sector organisations including the civil service, health service and the police. But as the Edinburgh Television Festival heard, still not enough people make it into senior management roles, particularly as controllers and commissioners.
The BBC has looked closely at the barriers to progress and announced new schemes to tackle them - costing £3m over three years.
Firstly, we need to change the way we recruit. We are dramatically increasing the outreach work we do - in community groups, colleges, schools and through open sessions across the UK - to encourage under-represented groups to apply to the BBC. I recently worked with an energetic bunch of young students, mainly from ethnic minority backgrounds, who were introduced to the BBC by the University of Central Lancashire - from the former mill towns of Blackburn and Preston, not places we'd traditionally think to look for the next generation.
Then we need to be better at retaining talented individuals and supporting them in reaching their full potential and moving into senior roles. Our new mentoring and development programme, which offers greater one-to-one and intensive personalised support, is so important. In addition, our new trainee production scheme, which has just kicked off, and our journalism trainee schemes, have a strong diversity focus, so we are providing clearer pathways into all parts of the BBC.
On screen, we must constantly strive to reflect as accurately as possible the rich cultural mix of the UK.
Earlier this year BBC non-executive director Samir Shah criticised what he called "inauthentic representation" of ethnic minority communities, citing the Ferreira family in EastEnders.
It is unfair to highlight one five-year-old example from a drama series that remains the most popular programme on television among ethnic minority audiences. This example fails to reflect many other aspects of our work, particularly our in-house drama output. Our continuing drama series, including Holby City and Casualty, have led the way in casting diverse talent, in leading roles as well. Though we do not always get it right, overall we have much to be proud of.
The BBC set up the Writers' Academy, under John Yorke, four years ago, increasing the number of writers from diverse backgrounds working on our biggest programmes, including some of our continuing drama series.
In addition, programmes such as Criminal Justice, No1 Ladies Detective Agency, Life Is Not All Ha Ha Hee Hee, Shoot the Messenger, the entertainment series Last Choir Standing and a lot of our children's output have also been praised for the way they have represented diversity or addressed issues faced by communities from different backgrounds.
Part of this is ensuring we get closer to audiences when making programmes. For example, White Girl - part of BBC2's groundbreaking White Season - told the story of a white family relocating from Leeds to a predominantly Asian community in Bradford. Here the production team worked very closely with the community to ensure a sensitive and accurate portrayal.
In an increasingly globalised creative economy where competition will intensify, it is only by understanding our diverse consumers that we can stay relevant and survive. The BBC prides itself on keeping in touch with its audiences - to do so successfully we'll need to keep making changes, and fast.
The advertising regulator has cleared Cadbury of racism and perpetuating colonial stereotypes of African people in its latest TV advertising campaign.
Cadbury's campaign featured Ghanaian musician Tinny and aimed to promote the chocolate brand's tie-up with the Fairtrade organisation for cocoa from the African nation for its Dairy Milk range.
The Advertising Standards Authority received 29 complaints that the TV campaign was demeaning to African people and perpetuated racial stereotypes.
However, the ASA's council has decided not to formally investigate the complaints. "Although the council acknowledges that Cadbury had used stereotypes in their ads, they felt that the stereotypes were not harmful or offensive," said the ASA, which argued that most ads use some form of stereotype device to get a message across.
Cadbury has steadfastly maintained that the company went to "considerable lengths" to ensure that the ad campaign was culturally sensitive and developed as a "joyous and uplifting portrayal of Ghanaian culture and something which Ghanaians can feel proud of".
In 2007 the ASA banned an ad for Cadbury's Trident chewing gum, which featured a black "dub poet" speaking in rhyme with a strong Caribbean accent, after more than 500 complaints that it was racist.
Rupert Murdoch has been forced to deny he believes Barack Obama is a racist, after appearing to back the controversial Fox News presenter Glenn Beck's comments about the US president.
The chairman and chief executive of News Corporation said in an interview earlier this week that Obama had made "a very racist comment" and that Beck's views were "right".
"He does not at all, for a minute, think the president is a racist," a News Corp spokesman told the US website Politico.
In the interview with Sky News Australia, Murdoch was asked about the views expressed by contributors to Fox News, including Beck's view that Obama was a racist.
"He [Obama] did make a very racist comment about blacks and whites and so on, which he said in his campaign he would be completely above," Murdoch said.
"That was something which perhaps should not have been said about the president but if you actually look at what he [Beck] was talking about, he was right."
Beck caused uproar in July when he described Obama had "a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture".
His remarks were made during a discussion of Obama's reaction to the arrest of Henry Louis Gates Jr, an African-American Harvard academic.
Murdoch also said in the interview he thought the Obama presidency was going "badly", citing the defection of independent voters in recent elections in Virginia and New Jersey.
Audience theory is an element of thinking that developed within academic literary theory and cultural studies.
Whether you are constructing a text or analysing one, you will need to consider the destination of that text, for example its target audience and how that audience will respond to that text.
Within audience theories, there are plenty of other theories which I will be explaining about. There is The Hypodermic Needle Model, which was first revealed and created in the 1920’s; this theory was the first attempt to explain how mass audiences might react to mass media. This particular theory, as it is known to be so powerful, also creates a lot of moral panics within the society.
The Two-Step-Flow audience theory, firstly created by Paul Lazarsfeld, Bernard Berelson, and Hazel Gaudet who had many doubts about The Hypodermic Needle Model, as they thought it was gradually beginning to get too clumsy for media researchers, a therefore not so reliable towards the audience.
Along these 2 effective audience theories, there is also, Uses & Gratifications, and ideas for this audience theory were built around the 1960’s, and now obviously since then, the list of Uses and Gratifications has been extended, particularly as new media forms have come along, for example video games and the internet.
There is also The Reception Theory, which emphasises the reader’s reception of a literacy text. Extending the concept of an active audience still further, in the 1980s and 1990s a lot of work was done on the way of making the audience properly understand a text, and how their individual circumstances affected their reading.
Critical Investigation
The different representation of young teenagers in London.
Linked Production
A new film trailer based on the genre of action/gangster, with direct links to the representations of teenagers in London.
Representation –
Our significant thought about something or someone, judging what they do, who they are etc. Representation provides models of how we see gender, social groups, individuals and aspect of the world we all live in. Representation is also a key concept in media, and will therefore be a key concept within my Critical Investigation.
Frequently, I will be talking about the representations of teenagers in London, and the representations different kind of people have on teenagers. For example, the elderly people, male adults, female adults, and people from different backgrounds and cultures.
Research –
The process of being able to pick up and find different sort of data about the topic you are searching for. Our news research facilities are now computers, newspapers, television, books and many more. In order for me to find out as much reliable information about teenagers in London, I will have to carry out a lot of research and apply it to my Critical Investigation and Linked Production.
This will also require the ability of my research skills, but by applying them, I should hopefully be able to improve them. Also, in order for me to produce an effectively attractive film trailer, I will have to do extra research and try to build my ideas together on how to produce the best film trailer based on teenagers.
Deep Focus --
A camera technique that allows both near and far objects from the camera to be in focus at the same time. This is of corse a very classy technique to be performing and therefore requires a lot of skill. I have mainly picked this because it will be required in my Linked Prodcution very much in order to make the best possible film trailer on teenagers in London. Deep focus will also be a concept that I will be disscussing about in my Critical Investigation.
Connotation --
A meaning representing features of something or someone, suggestions of what something is or means, but mainly what something COULD mean. A more detailed analysis on objects, people etc.
Within my critical investigation, I will have to cover points that relate to the connotations of a teenagers behaviour, why they behave the way they behave.
Edit—
The changing selection and construction of various elements that form a completed media text. This could be a production of a video, a production of a track or even a production of a piece of writing that may eventually be needed to edit, in order for the best possible result.
Throughout doing my Critical Investigation and Linked Production, I will have to deeply consider the amount of time I will be spending on the editing. Clearly, I will mainly be focusing on the time spent on the editing of my Linked Production, but also the time spent on editing my Critical Investigation, in order to make it as good as possible.