September 28, 2005

It was one of New Jersey's most gruesome child abuse cases, a 7-year-old boy's mummified body stuffed into a plastic container only a few feet from where his two starving brothers were kept in a locked basement with a bucket for a toilet. The family had been investigated for child abuse or neglect 10 times over as many years, but a caseworker overwhelmed by 107 other cases failed to follow up on a report several months before the boys' discovery that they were being beaten and burned.

Consortium led by Exxon Mobil is set to begin pumping up to 250,000 barrels of oil a day from wells off Sakalin Island, deep in Sea of Okhotsk; mapped since 1970's, reserves of Sakhalin, Russia's easternmost major island, now total 14 billion barrels of oil--or just over 1 percent of global reserves--and 96 trillion cubic feet of gas; photo; maps (M)

Obstetric nightmare of fistulas, unknown in West for century, is common lot of young African women, thousands of whom have come to Dr Kees Waaldijk's hospital in Katsina, Nigeria, for surgery; photos; most are teenagers whose babies lodge in narrow birth canals, cutting off blood and ripping holes in bowels and urethras; babies die after horrific labor and girls, some married before menstruation, are left with ripped insides, utterly incontinent and shunned by families and neighbors; UN Population Fund says new cases far outpace repair surgeries and estimates 400,000 to 800,000 women in Nigeria alone suffer untreated; Waaldijk is 64-year-old Dutchman who has operated on 15,000 fistulas in 22 years, riding circuit between Babbar Ruga Hospital and others in rural Nigeria; fistulas are easily prevented by Caesarean section but rural women have no access to such care; issue reflects broader plight of African women, one in 18 of whom die in childbirth in Nigeria, compared with one in 2,400 in Europe; Waaldijk observes that being a woman in Africa 'is truly a terrible thing' (M)

A Brooklyn man was convicted of murder in the 2003 death of a 19-year-old Fairfield University student. Article, Page B3.

Supreme Court agrees to decide constitutionality of Vermont's strict limits on campaign spending and contributions, suggesting justices might revisit 29-year-old ruling equating money with free speech; Vermont limits contributions to $400 for statewide offices, less for other offices, strictest limits in nation; case underscores significance of transition as John G Roberts Jr awaits confirmation as chief justice and court awaits successor to Sandra Day O'Connor, who has been at center of campaign finance cases; court will also consider exempting 'grass-roots lobbying' from McCain-Feingold law's ban on corporate ads in weeks before elections (M)