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Thursday, December 8, 2016

FIFA boss Infantino wants â€˜zero toleranceâ€™ of sex abuse in football â€” RT Sport

6:00 AM Bilal Muazin No comments

FIFA President Gianni Infantino says there needs to be "zero tolerance" of child abuse in football, promising to investigate how the sport's governing body can prevent it happening.

English football has been rocked by a scandal over accusations of historical pedophile activity within the game, with police forces across the country dealing with an increasing number of claims.

Football clubs warned by governing body about alleged child abuser back in 1989

With the English Football Association (FA) also launching a review into the allegations, Infantino has insisted football must act swiftly to handle the issue.

"It has to be taken seriously - there must be zero tolerance from that point of view, from a football perspective, but also from a criminal perspective as well," Infantino told reporters in Singapore on Thursday, as reported by Reuters.

"Those who have been guilty of abusing children need to punished very seriously. They have to be out of football, that is without question, but also on the criminal side they need to be punished.

"There are not many worse things in life, not in football life but in life generally, than child abuse.â€

Police forces in at least 18 areas across Britain are currently investigating allegations made by 350 victims, with some cases dating back to the 1980s.

The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) has received around 1,000 reports to a telephone hotline, with Premier League clubs Southampton and Chelsea among those linked to the scandal.

Details about possible widespread abuse first came to light last month, when former Crewe Alexandra player Andy Woodward came forward to detail his abuse at the hands of pedophile former coach Barry Bennell.

The 62-year-old was charged at the end of November with eight offenses of sexual assault against a boy and is due to appear at South Cheshire Magistrates' Court on December 14.

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Pizzagate gunman refuses to dismiss online conspiracy theory claims about child sex ring

1:00 PM Bilal Muazin No comments

Edgar Maddison Welch, 28 of Salisbury, N.C., surrenders to police Sunday, Dec. 4, 2016, in Washington. Welch, who said he was investigating a conspiracy theory about Hillary Clinton running a child sex ring out of a pizza place, fired an assault rifle inside the restaurant on Sunday injuring no one, police and news reports said. (Sathi Soma via AP) Â (Sathi Soma)

The man accused of firing an assault rifle inside a Washington pizza shop refused to completely dismiss the online conspiracy theory accusing the eatery of running a child sex ring that brought him there in the first place -- although he said he regretted how he handled the situation.

Edgar Maddison Welch, 28, told the New York Times in a Wednesday videoconference that the online articles he read about Comet Ping Pong pizzeria â€" which linked the supposed ring to Hillary Clinton â€" left him with the â€œimpression something nefarious was happeningâ€ and he wanted to â€œreally able to look into it.â€

Court documents showed that Welch entered the eatery and fired an AR-15 rifle several times inside the restaurant but later exited with his hands up. He surrendered to police when he found no signs of children being held as sex slaves.

"I just wanted to do some good and went about it the wrong way," he told the newspaper.

While Welch acknowledged that his â€œintelâ€ on the restaurant was not 100 percent, he refused to dismiss that what he had read online was untrue, conceding only that there were no children "inside that dwelling."Â

He also rejected the term â€œfake newsâ€ believing that it diminishes stories shared outside the mainstream media.

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Welch told the newspaper he started driving to Washington from his Salisbury, N.C., home intending only to give the restaurant a "closer look." But while on the way, he said he felt his "heart breaking over the thought of innocent people suffering."

Welch would not say why he brought an AR-15 into the pizza shop and fired it, the newspaper reported.

On Thursday, a judge delayed a preliminary hearing for Welch. His public defender requested the delay, saying she needed more time to investigate the case. He will be back in court Tuesday.

Welch appears to have lived an aimless life that became turbulent in the weeks before he was drawn to the nation's capital by a fake news story.

Friends and family say he is a well-meaning father of two girls who wanted to be a firefighter. But he also unnerved some with his religious fervor and sometimes had trouble detaching himself from the internet.

In the weeks before his Washington arrest, there were other signs of turbulence. In late October, Welch struck a teenage pedestrian with his car in his hometown, requiring the boy to be airlifted to a hospital, according to a police report that said he wasn't immediately charged. More recently, days before he drove to Washington, he was dropped from the rolls of a volunteer fire department.

In past years, he was convicted of drunken driving and minor drug charges.

But the one constant, friends and family say, was his love for his two young daughters.

"He's a father and a very loving man, very concerned about children," said his aunt Tajuana Tadlock, adding: "He's not a vigilante, by no check of the words."

Tadlock said Welch's parents haven't been able to talk to him to ask what he was thinking, and the family's only information comes from the news and the public defender.

In recent years, Welch often mentioned his Christian faith. Interspersed with Facebook posts about his daughters are the registered Republican's musings on the Bible and religion.

Danielle Tillman of Raleigh said she met Welch a few months ago and has known his current girlfriend for years. She recalls Welch made her uncomfortable while talking at length about religion. At one point, he grabbed her hand and prayed, asking for "the demons to come out of me," she said.

Welch's family has roots in the Salisbury area, where his father and grandfather served in local government, according to the Salisbury Post. Friends say he attended West Rowan High School. A woman at the family's property declined to answer questions this week.

Around age 18, Welch pleaded guilty to misdemeanor drug possession charges in neighboring Cabarrus County, according to online records of the January 2007 offense.

Welch enrolled at Cape Fear Community College in Wilmington, but court records say he didn't graduate.

On a break from college in 2009, Welch was interviewed by the Salisbury Post after he made it halfway through a hike of the 500-mile Colorado Trail. He told the newspaper the hike helped him overcome an addiction to the internet.

"It's a good feeling, going solo," he told the newspaper. "There's something spiritual about it."

In April 2013, Welch was charged with impaired driving with a blood-alcohol content of .09, court records show. He pleaded guilty, was sentenced to probation and community service and underwent alcohol counseling.

Rowan County records show that after a short marriage, his wife filed for divorce in November 2014. The thin file doesn't say why they split up. The divorce complaint was dismissed in 2015 after neither attended a scheduled hearing. Documents related to his arrest say they remain separated, and his two children live with him.

Welch twice served briefly as a volunteer firefighter, and his aunt said he was recently taking classes needed to get a paying job as a firefighter.

Locke Fire Chief Rusty Alexander said Welch barely showed up at the fire station after joining in 2012, and lasted about six months.

"He tried it, and basically it wasn't for him," Alexander said.

In May 2016, Welch became a volunteer firefighter in the town of Spencer, Chief Gray Grubb said. Grubb said Welch stopped attending training sessions and didn't answer alarms, so he was removed from the active roster Nov. 30.

"When we interviewed him, he seemed like a good guy," Grubb said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Pizzagate gunman refuses to dismiss online conspiracy theory claims about child sex ring

11:30 AM Bilal Muazin No comments