News Headlines - 27 August 2014

▽1,400 Children Exploited in U.K. Child Sex Ring, According to New Report | TIME

Over 1,400 children in a town in Northern England may have endured sexual abuse that was systematically ignored by police and other authorities from 1997-2013, according to a report released Tuesday.

▽BBC News - Protester interrupts Gordon Brown speech

A supporter of Scottish independence has interrupted a speech by former Prime Minister Gordon Brown ahead of next month's referendum... The man shouted "rubbish" and "you're an absolute disgrace" before he was removed from the meeting midway through Mr Brown's address.

▽BBC News - Steven Sotloff's mother in plea to IS: Free my son

The mother of Steven Sotloff, a US journalist being held by Islamic State (IS) militants, has made an emotional video appeal for his release.
Shirley Sotloff addressed her plea directly to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the militant group.

▽Insight - A broken man living on dreams pulls Japan into Syria hostage drama | Reuters

Changes in Yukawa's life in suburban Tokyo had been fast and disorienting. Over the past decade, he had lost his wife to lung cancer, lost a business and his house to bankruptcy and been forced to live in a public park for almost a month, according to Yukawa's father and an online journal he maintained.
The hard times led to soul searching. By his own account, he had changed his name to the feminine-sounding Haruna, attempted to kill himself by cutting off his genitals and came to believe he was the reincarnation of a cross-dressing Manchu princess who had spied for Japan in World War Two.

▽Tesco sales down 4% as it struggles to fend off German discount stores - FT.com

Tesco’s wounds from the supermarket price war deepened on Wednesday after industry figures showed a 4 per cent fall in quarterly sales at the UK’s largest supermarket chain, which last month ousted its chief executive.