We live in an extraordinarily cruel world.

Hundreds of thousands of new recruits face grossly abusive treatment at the hands of senior conscripts throughout their first year of service in the Russian armed forces, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. - Moscow

He admitted forcing a group of detainees to masturbate while other soldiers watched and took pictures, and described watching a fellow soldier jumping on prisoners' hands and feet. He said he could have stopped the abuse but did no - US/Iraq

She said the school put inmates through an intensive program of mental and physical torture that included beatings, prolonged interrogations, sleep deprivation and continuous exposure to video and audio propaganda.

The "brainwashing", she said, was a more intensive form of "re-education" applied to Falun Gong followers in between stints at places like Chatou and Shanshui, the labour camp in Guangdong province where Tang spent three years until August last year. She said her visit to the Guangzhou City Law School has left her partially crippled in one leg. - China

A man accused of chopping off the fingers of a young Brisbane saxophone player during a home invasion had falsely blamed his alleged victim and two of his friends for stealing from a "drug lord" named China - Brisbane

No, you really don't want to know.