1.The kidnapper of a six-year-old boy has sent the child’s mother a text message containing a picture of her son “waving goodbye”.
Hours after Mani Dad was taken from his home in Keilce, Poland on January 4 this year, his mother Leyla, 33, received the disturbing image via SMS.
Mani is believed to have been lured from his home by his estranged father Zayn Dean, who initially told Leyla she was taking the boy on a “short holiday”.
But when she received the picture of her son saying goodbye later that evening, Leyla began to worry her estranged partner might have more sinister plans. No one has seen Mani since and British police suspect he is in the UK as his father is a British citizen.
Leyla dad with Mani before he was kidnapped by his father.
Since Mani’s disappearance his 33-year-old mother has launched proceedings with the family division of the high court in a bid to trace her son and a judge has allowed her special permissions to reveal details of the case to appeal for public support.
“This is a desperately sad case involving the removal of a very young child from his home in Poland and separated from his mother who has been his primary carer from birth,” Dad’s lawyers said in statement.
This week, Leyla has penned an emotional public letter to her son in which she said she was “dying to see” him but didn’t know where he was.
The boy’s father Zayn Dean is thought to be in the UK.
Here is her heartbreaking letter to her little boy:
Dear Mani
Please, please do not worry baby I promise I will see you very soon.
I miss you so much I am dying to see you but I don’t know where you are. You are my baby and I don’t know where you are.
I know that we will see each other again soon, and when you are older I can explain this all to you, and you will know that I would never ever, ever want to be separated from you. This is killing me.
You are always with me, you’ve always been with me, you are always in my heart and you always will be.
When I see you I will squeeze you so tight and never let you go.
When we are back together everything can go back to normal and I promise you that you will be safe and nothing will ever change that.
You probably don’t know what’s happening and I wish you were here so I could make you feel better.
Please, please do not worry. I know it has been a long time since I saw you but I love you so much and you are in my heart and in my thoughts every second of every day.
I promise we will be together again soon my baby.
I love you from the moon and back and all the universe too.
I hope and pray every day that anyone out there who sees this letter and sees your photo and sees your father’s photo that they report it as soon as possible so that we can be together again and be together forever.
Please, please can anyone out there who reads this please help me find my baby boy.
Mani I love you so much and I miss you every second of every day. I promise you will never be away from me ever again. I am, and will be, with you always.
Your Mama.
Leyla’s letter to her son.l
2. MERYL Streep is standing up for women’s rights, and not just in Hollywood.
Streep, 66, who will star in the women’s rights movie, Suffragette, later this year, has today sent a letter to each and every member of the US Congress, urging them to support the Equal Rights Amendment.
The amendment, which guarantees equal pay for women, has been before Congress countless times since it was first written in 1920 but it has never become law.
Shamefully, equal pay is not the norm in the US.
Streep, who was seen whooping for joy when her acting colleague, Patricia Arquette, called for equal pay while accepting her Oscar earlier this year, has included a book with her letter, outlining all the reasons why women deserve equal pay.
The letter says, in part: “I am writing to ask you to stand up for equality – for your mother, your daughter, your sister, your wife or yourself – by actively supporting the equal rights amendment.”
Streep has been nominated for a record breaking 19 Academy Awards, with a 20th almost certain to come this year.
Jacqueline Kennedy with her daughter Caroline.
3.A rare set of photographs of the Kennedy children have been put up for auction.
The photographs were taken by the Kennedy’s White House nanny, Maud Shaw, in the early 1960s.
Miss Shaw took care of little John and Caroline Kennedy immediately before and after President Kennedy was assassinated in Texas in 1963.
The photographs show Caroline riding a horse, and playing with an Easter basket; and the children playing on a beach. There are 79 in the previously unseen collection.
The photographs will be sold by Nate D. Sanders Auctions on 25 June. Miss Maud never married, or had children of her own.
4.The ABC committed a grave error by inviting a known terrorist to sit in the audience of its popular QandA program, says the Communications Minister, Malcolm Turnbull.
The Australian reports that Mr Turnbull has contacted ABC boss Mark Scott, ABC chairman Jim Spigelman and Q&A host Tony Jones, saying it “beggars belief” that Zak Mallah was included in a live audience at the ABC studios on Monday night.
“He (Zak) had served a term of imprisonment for threatening to kill ASIO officers,” Mr Turnbull said.
“He had been charged with threatening suicide attacks and preparing for terrorist attacks in that context, although had been acquitted.
“He had travelled to Syria in the pursuit of what he described as ‘jihad’.
“His social media presence is vile, abusive and violent. Surely we have learned to take threats of this kind, to take people like this, extremely seriously. The idea that there was no physical security checks on that audience, or that this man was allowed into it, is extraordinary.”
The show’s host, Mr Jones apologised on air for remarks made by Zak, who blamed the Liberal party for making people want to join ISIS in its campaign of butchery.
Diane Foley, the mother of slain James Foley.
5.Never, never, never pay a ransom.
It can only encourage more kidnappings, more threats, and more violence.
That has been the stand taken by the US – and Australia – for as long as anyone can remember but President Barack Obama has now promised to ease up on those parents who do decide to enter into negotiations with the gangs of thugs holding their adult children in Syria and elsewhere.
The New York Times reports that President Obama has backed a move under which the US government “will no longer threaten criminal prosecution of the families of American hostages who are held abroad by groups like the Islamic State if they attempt to pay ransom for the release of their loved ones.”
The Times said Obama will “make clear that while he is keeping a longstanding federal prohibition against making concessions to those who take hostages, the government can communicate and negotiate with captors holding Americans or help family members seeking to do so in order to ensure their safe return.”
The Times says Obama’s announcement will “make official what has long been the United States government’s unspoken practice in some hostage cases.”
6.Rap mogul Diddy – older folk will know him as Puff Daddy, or else as Sean Coombs – has been arrested and charged with assault by kettle bell.
The AP reports that Diddy was released from jail late Monday night after the alleged assault with a weight-room kettlebell at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) where his son is on the football team.
Diddy, 45, posted $50,000 bail. Reports suggest that the alleged assault may have been against the football coach, who was riding the son to work harder.
7.Medical marijuana can ease chronic pain but can’t cure many of the illnesses it has been licensed to treat.
That is the upshot of a major new report being hailed as the “first comprehensive analysis” of the potential benefits of pot.
The report says “the strongest evidence is for chronic pain and for muscle stiffness in multiple sclerosis.”
Evidence was weak for many other conditions “including anxiety, sleep disorders, and Tourette’s syndrome.”
The report was published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Similar studies are currently underway in Australia, where parents have been threatened with prosecution for treating their children’s pain with pot.
