TEHRAN, Iran – After months of denials, Iran acknowledged Saturday that at least three people detained in the country's postelection turmoil were beaten to death by their jailers.
The surprise announcement by the hard-line judiciary confirmed one of the opposition's most devastating and embarrassing claims against authorities and the elite Revolutionary Guard forces that led the crackdown after June's disputed presidential vote.
There was no immediate public reaction from the opposition, but some activists asserted that authorities under pressure over abuse claims were merely seeking to punish low ranking staff while shielding senior level officials who the opposition says are most to blame.
Still, the statement offered some rare vindication for the government's critics, who had rejected earlier explanations from the police and the judiciary that the detainees' deaths were caused by illnesses like meningitis, not physical mistreatment.
"The coroner's office has rejected that meningitis was the cause of the deaths and has confirmed the existence of signs of repeated beatings on the bodies and has declared that the wounds inflicted were the cause of the deaths," the judiciary statement said, according to the Web site of Iran's state TV.
The judiciary also said it has charged 12 officials at Kahrizak prison — three of them with murder, but it did not identify them. The prison, on the southern outskirts of the capital, Tehran, was at the center of the opposition's claims that prisoners were tortured and raped in custody.
Anger over the abuse claims, which emerged in August, extended far beyond the reformist camp, with influential conservative figures in the clerical hierarchy condemning the mistreatment of detainees.
The outrage forced Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to order the immediate closure of the Kahrizak facility.
The opposition says at least 72 protesters were killed in the postelection crackdown, but the government puts the number of confirmed dead at 30.
Authorities initially tried to repel the abuse claims by accusing the opposition of running a campaign of lies against the ruling system. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had even accused Iran's enemies of being involved in the crimes, a claim the opposition rejected as ridiculous.
Iran's police chief, Gen. Ismail Ahmadi Moghaddam, said in August that protesters were beaten by their jailers at Kahrizak, but he maintained at the time that the deaths were not caused by the abuse.
The opposition's criticism was implicitly aimed at the country's most powerful military force, the Revolutionary Guard, which operates with some autonomy from the ruling clerics and led the harsh crackdown and detention of protesters in the tense weeks after the election.
The unrest broke out after pro-reform candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi claimed he was robbed of the presidency through massive fraud in the vote.
Pressure around the abuse claims accelerated in early August.
One of the other pro-reform candidates defeated in the election, Mahdi Karroubi, said then that he had received reports from former military commanders and other senior officials that some detainees, male and female, were raped in custody to the point of physical and mental injury.
It also emerged that one of the detainees who had died in custody was the son of Abdolhossein Rouhalamini, a top aide to conservative presidential candidate Mohsen Rezaei. That was a central factor in raising anger among government supporters.
His son, Mohsen Rouhalamini, was arrested during a July 9 protest and taken two weeks later to a hospital where he died within hours.
Saturday's judiciary announcement named him as one of the three people it had found to be victims of abuse. The other two were identified as Amir Javadi and Mohammad Kamrani.

Further adding to the outcry, prosecutors said this month that a doctor who exposed the torture of jailed protesters died of poisoning from a delivery salad laced with an overdose of blood pressure medication.

Their findings fueled opposition suspicions that he was killed because of what he knew.

The 26-year-old doctor, Ramin Pourandarjani, had testified to a parliamentary committee, reportedly telling them that one of the protesters he treated was the younger Rouhalamini and that he died from severe torture. He said he was also forced by security officials to list the cause of death as meningitis, according to opposition Web sites.

Pourandarjani died on Nov. 10 in mysterious circumstances, and authorities initially gave conflicting explanations, saying he was in a car accident, had a heart attack or committed suicide. Forensic tests later showed that the doctor died of "poisoning by drugs" that matched doses of propranolol found in a salad that was delivered to him, Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi said early this month.

The government's rivals did not immediately respond directly to the judiciary's statement Saturday.

One prominent reformist voice, former President Mohammad Khatami, told an audience of academics in western Iran on Saturday that the use of force against protesters demonstrates the government has little regard for human rights.

"A majority of the people are dissatisfied with the way the country is being administered," his Web site quoted him as saying.

He added that "a considerable portion of society" has objections over the official election results.

"These must be heard. They (people) must be convinced that the elections were really fair. Such convincing can't be achieved through jail, crackdowns and restrictions," Khatami said.

Iran's judiciary has also had a central role in authorities' efforts to silence the opposition. Since August, it has brought to trial more than 100 protesters, activists and pro-reform opposition leaders, accusing them of fueling the protests and being part of a plot to overthrow the government.

MADRID (AFP) –
Real Madrid sent out a message of intent to all-conquering champions Barcelona with a 6-0 demolition of Real Zaragoza on Saturday.

While Barcelona were away in Abu Dhabi winning the Club World Cup, their sixth trophy this year, Real closed the gap at the top of La Liga to just two points after tearing apart sorry Zaragoza.

It was always going to be a tough challenge for Zaragoza's caretaker coach Jose Gay who took charge this week and it quickly turned into a nightmare with Gonzalo Higuain scoring after just three minutes.

A double for Rafael Van der Vaart then followed and Higuain volleyed in a delightful shot still before half time.

Cristiano Ronaldo, returning after a one-match ban, teased the Zaragoza defence before adding the fifth and substitute Karim Benzema wrapped up the scoring with 20 minutes to go against the side which has conceded most goals in the Spanish top flight.

"The aim at the start was for the team to be solid in defence and then score as many goals as we could in attack and so we can be very happy at the way it has worked out," said the Real coach Manuel Pellegrini.

"We can ask for more and for the team to be more consistent. Against Zaragoza we played an impressive 90 minutes and we need to be like that more often although in recent matches we have shown we are going in the right direction."

Meanwhile, Gay feels his main job now is to help the Zaragoza players rediscover their confidence.

"It was obvious that the mood among them was very low and so the worst that could have happened was to concede a goal right at the start," said Gay whose team remain in the relegation zone.

"After that we were not able to bounce back but while the players are disappointed our league starts after the winter break on the third (of January).

"My position at the moment is only short term but I have to look ahead and to raise the players' morale as the team is a lot better than it is showing."

Sevilla's disappointing home form cost them further points as they slumped to a 2-1 defeat by Getafe.

A brace from Roberto Soldado led the visitors to victory and it means that Sevilla have now failed to win in three attempts at the Sanchez Pizjuan.

Soldado slipped the ball through the keeper's legs to give Getafe the lead after 12 minutes and then later capitalised on a defensive mix-up to score into an empty net.

Substitute Alvaro Negredo reduced the deficit at the start of the second half and despite Sevilla battling hard in the final stages for an equaliser, Getafe hung on.

"We cannot afford to lose so many points at home and we need to become more solid in defence. We lost our concentration too often and we made it too easy for Getafe," said Sevilla coach Manolo Jimenez whose side are nine points behind Barcelona.

Athletic Bilbao had a comfortable 2-0 win over Osasuna thanks to early goals from Fran Yeste and Fernando Llorente.

A below strength Osasuna side were a goal down after just a minute when Yeste knocked the ball home from close range after being set up by Llorente.

Osasuna offered little in response and it was Llorente himself who added a second after 12 minutes with a clinical drive from the edge of the area.

Athletic took their foot off the pedal in the second half and eased to a victory which puts them up to sixth place in the table.

The human embryonic heart begins beating around 21 days after conception, or five weeks after the last normal menstrual period (LMP), which is the date normally used to date pregnancy. It is unknown how blood in the human embryo circulates for the first 21 days in the absence of a functioning heart. The human heart begins beating at a rate near the mother’s, about 75-80 beats per minute (BPM).

In the human body, the heart is usually situated in the middle of the thorax with the largest part of the heart slightly offset to the left (although sometimes it is on the right, see dextrocardia), underneath the sternum. The heart is usually felt to be on the left side because the left heart (left ventricle) is stronger (it pumps to all body parts). The left lung is smaller than the right lung because the heart occupies more of the left hemithorax. The heart is fed by the coronary circulation and enclosed by a sac known as the pericardium and is surrounded by the lungs. The pericardium comprises two parts: the fibrous pericardium, made of dense fibrous connective tissue; and a double membrane structure (parietal and visceral pericardium) containing a serous fluid to reduce friction during heart contractions. The heart is located in the mediastinum, the central sub-division of the thoracic cavity. The mediastinum also contains other structures, such as the esophagus and trachea, and is flanked on either side by the right and left pulmonary cavities, which house the lungs.

EKG Machines

Creators Syndicate –
Mia's story is good holiday fare. That must have been what the Washington Post editors were thinking when they put her smiling face on the front page. Whether they considered the deeper implications is not so clear, as we shall see.

Mia Fleming is a 20-year-old college student who was adopted as an infant. This year, she set out to find not her birthparents, but the two teenagers who found her on a Fairfax, Va., townhouse's front steps.

Emily Yanich and Chris Astle were both 15 in 1989. They acknowledge that on the afternoon in question, they "may" have walked to the 7-Eleven to buy cigarettes. When they returned to their neighborhood, they heard a baby crying. "I looked around and noticed that there weren't any moms out there pushing their kids around in a stroller," Astle recalled. The two teens followed the cries and found a bundle on the landing of a townhouse "where it didn't seem anyone was at home." They found the dark-eyed baby girl wrapped in orange towels, her umbilical cord still attached.

After frantically knocking on the townhouse door without result, Astle and Yanich, holding the crying infant, tried to decide on the best course. The Post recounted their thinking: "Had someone forgotten the baby? Was she hungry? Should they go back to the 7-Eleven and get some food? Should they take her? Would they get in trouble?"

Shocked and uncertain, they took the baby to Yanich's stepfather, who called the police. In short order the emergency vehicles arrived and the baby (who was estimated to be 12 hours old) was whisked off to the hospital. Later that day, a nurse called to tell them that the child was healthy and was going to be just fine.

And she was. A couple who already had one adopted child eagerly embraced the opportunity to adopt her. This month, 20 years later, Mia Fleming managed to contact her two guardian angels through Facebook. Her message was tentative: "Hi. I'm sorry to bother you, but if you are the Chris Astle I was looking for then I just want to thank you. You and Ms. Yanich found me on someone's doorstep when I was an infant. I don't really know what else to say, but thank you."

Fleming speaks for millions of adopted children. It's pretty basic. Everyone (excepting only the pathological) is grateful to have been given a chance at life. Fleming's simple gratitude contrasts with the fatuous nonsense often peddled in the media that adoption is always traumatic. It isn't. Yet even if it were, isn't it better to be alive? Yes, some adoptees struggle with questions of identity, but life is full of challenges. In other ways, adoptees are actually better off than the average American child. A Search Institute study found that 55 percent of adopted teenagers reported high self-esteem compared with 45 percent of others. This may be because adoptive families have lower-than-average rates of divorce, and/or because adopting couples want children very badly.

Fleming's birthmother abandoned her in a relatively safe place. The same could not be said of many infants found in public restrooms, train stations, and even dumpsters around the time she was born. In response, all 50 states (but not the District of Columbia) have now adopted safe haven or "Baby Moses" laws permitting women to relinquish newborns "no questions asked" within a few days of birth — a sad necessity.

Baby Moses has inspired one more entrant into the compassionate network of organizations hoping to help women with crisis pregnancies. In the past 35 years, thousands of such groups have sprouted around the country like wildflowers. But until now, none was specifically focused on Jewish women. The Bible (Exodus: Chapter I, verse 15) relates the story of Shifra and Puah, the midwives who refused Pharaoh's order to kill the male children of the Israelites. "But the midwives feared God, and did not as the King of Egypt commanded them." December marked the debut of "In Shifra's Arms" (Inshifrasarms.org), the first Jewish crisis pregnancy group (in whose founding I played a small role). Here, Jewish women struggling with life-and-death decisions will find support, information, and resources on alternatives to abortion.

Mia's story is heartwarming. But one cannot read it without thinking of something else — the millions who cannot give thanks. Each year, 1.2 million children in America are aborted. If they were placed for adoption, they'd presumably want to thank someone as well. The goal of In Shifra's Arms, like its sister organizations, is to ensure that more Mias get the chance to be grateful.

To find out more about Mona Charen and read features by other Creators Syndicate columnists and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.

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