News round up: Drug abuse a ’cause not effect’ of social problems

Drug abuse a ’cause not effect’ of social problems

Drug or alcohol abuse among children under the age of 15 is a cause and not an effect of a host of health and social problems, research has suggested.

Early drinking and drug-taking raise the future risk of addiction, teenage pregnancy, failure at school, sexually-transmitted infections (STIs) and crime, independently of other factors that might predispose to these outcomes, scientists have determined.
Read more on this story in The Times

Paedophiles unite with terrorists online

For some, the internet is merely a hiding place — a web of secret corridors where all manner of shameful deeds unfold. But the police never expected that it might become a strategic platform where two groups of society’s outcasts, terrorists and child sex abusers, could meet to exchange operational secrets.

Read more on this story in The Times

Scene set for court battle over deposits

London and Reykjavik have appointed lawyers as the Nato allies threaten to sue each other over Iceland’s banking collapse.

The move came as the UK public spending watchdog ordered councils to confess to any dubious investments – on top of their £860m ($1.49bn) frozen in Icelandic banks.

Read more on this story in The Financial Times

How to give your child a better start in life: delay parenthood

The children of young, poorly educated mothers are more likely to face health and educational problems before they start school, according to a study which suggests that delaying parenthood to get the best qualifications and a career first gives children a better start in life.

The study, based on in-depth interviews with 15,000 families whose first child was born at the turn of the 21st century, presents an intimate portrait of family life. Half of parents in the UK admit to smacking their child, a third have bribed them and three in 10 children reach the age of five living in poverty.

Read more on this story in The Guardian

More than half leave school without five good GCSEs

Fewer than half of teenagers left school with five good GCSEs including English and maths this summer, official figures revealed yesterday Michael Gove, the shadow children’s secretary, said: “Once again we see that children in the weakest areas are not getting the same opportunities as others. The gap between the fortunate and the forgotten remains stubbornly wide as the lucky ones pull away from the rest as they progress through school.”