UK – A discount store has been branded ‘disgusting’ and ‘irresponsible’ for stocking bathroom scales with a ‘pro-anorexia’ slogan. A shopper took a picture of the scales on sale at B&M stores which have the slogan ‘nothing tastes as good as skinny feels’ emblazoned across them. Supermodel Kate Moss was criticized for making the remarks in 2009 after she was asked what her mottos were in an interview with a fashion website. Rachel May Shevlin posted the picture on Facebook and urged people to write to B&M Stores to complain about the product. The scales have caused a massive backlash online with others turning to Twitter to vent their frustration at the product, accusing it of sending an irresponsible message to vulnerable people.

(Daily Mail)…[+]

AUSTRALIA – A writer has criticized Facebook for double standards after she was banned from the social network for confronting an internet troll, yet a meme she reported depicting domestic violence did not qualify to be removed.

Clementine Ford, a columnist for Australia’s Daily Life, was banned from Facebook for 30-days on Friday after telling an internet troll, who allegedly called her a “diseased whore”, to “f**k off”. Meanwhile, a meme showing a picture of a young woman with a bloodied face accompanied by the caption, “He told me to make him a sandwich, I should have listened”, did not violate Facebook’s Community Standards after Ms Ford reported the picture citing “annoying and distasteful humor”. In light of the two incidents, Ms Ford has lambasted Facebook as “hypocritical” with a “pathetic, hostile attitude towards women”.(The Independent UK)…[+]

/abonnement/YEMEN – Hundreds of thousands of children in Yemen face life-threatening malnutrition, millions lack access to health care or clean water, and some have been drafted as soldiers in the year-old war, the United Nations Children’s Fund said today. A UNICEF report said all sides had “exponentially increased” the use of child soldiers in the conflict between Houthi forces, allied to Iran, and a Saudi-led coalition supporting Yemen’s President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi. “On average, at least six children have been killed or injured every day,” said the report “Childhood on the Brink”. UNICEF has confirmed 934 children directly killed and 1,356 injured, but says they are “only a tip of the iceberg”. “Sixty-one percent of those (children) killed and injured were in (Saudi-led) air strikes across the country,” Julien Harneis, UNICEF’s Representative in Yemen, told a briefing by telephone from the capital Sana’a.(Reuters)…[+]