Society's ChildS


USA

4 US cities among the most violent in the world in 2015


RT
Fri, 29 Jan 2016 20:00 UTC
Baltimore riots
© Jim Bourg / ReutersClouds of smoke and crowd control agents rise shortly after the deadline for a city-wide curfew passed in Baltimore, Maryland April 28, 2015, as crowds protest the death of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man who died in police custody
Four American cities are among the 50 with highest murder rates worldwide in 2015, a new study revealed. St. Louis, with 188 homicides per 317,000 residents is the highest among them, made it to the 15th place on the list.

The study conducted by the Mexico-based group Council for Public Security and Criminal Justice focused on cities with population of at least 300,000. Excluded from the survey were the cities with no reliable crime statistic available as well as those in war zones.

America is the only developed nation on the list. Baltimore, Detroit and New Orleans, all of which have systematic violence problems, made the grade. Baltimore in 2015 attracted nationwide attention during the mass riots in April, triggered by the death of black man Freddie Gray in police custody. His death was one of 434 homicides that happened in the city of 624,000 residents in 2015.
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Star of David

Israel punishing conscience: Woman who refused to serve in IDF over treatment of Palestinians thrown in jail


RT
Fri, 29 Jan 2016 19:50 UTC
israeli refuse serve army
A 19-year-old Israeli woman, imprisoned for 20 days for refusing to serve in the army because of violence against Palestinians, has been set free, sparking a mixed reaction with some praising her courage and others labeling her a "traitor."

The young woman will have to report to the induction base on Sunday, where she again would be required to serve in the army. Should she refuse, Kaminer will be put back behind bars for another month, RT's Paula Slier reports.

"I think it is a stupid move by the government and the military authorities to force people to serve in contradiction to their beliefs. A girl declares that she has a conscience opposing the occupation and she wants to do an alternative service is being put in jail. That is just outrageous", Kaminer's father told RT.

Kaminer served a year of national service with the Israeli Scouts, where she volunteered with children who had suffered injuries in Israel's Gaza wars. The experience prompted her to disobey Israeli's orders of conscription.
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Snakes in Suits

Anne Frank's stepsister: Donald Trump is acting like another Hitler by inciting racism


RT
Fri, 29 Jan 2016 19:43 UTC
Trump and Anne Frank
© Reuters / wikipedia.orgRepublican U.S. presidential candidate businessman Donald Trump (L) and Anne Frank
US presidential hopeful Donald Trump incites racism like fascist dictator Adolf Hitler, according to Anne Frank's stepsister and Auschwitz death camp survivor Eva Schloss.

Schloss, 86, who lives in London, told Newsweek magazine she sees similarities between Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and billionaire Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump.

She and Anne Frank played together as refugee children in Amsterdam before their families were forced into hiding. The diaries written by Frank from her hiding place are famous worldwide as an example of a teenage girl's poignant response to Nazi tyranny.

While Frank was one of the hundreds of thousands of people who died in the Holocaust, in the notorious Bergen-Belsen death camp, Schloss survived Auschwitz. After the war, Frank's father married Schloss's mother.
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Bullseye

Automated license plate readers turn Texas cops into data miners and bill collectors

Justin Gardner
The Free Thought Project
Fri, 29 Jan 2016 19:12 UTC
technology cop
Texas police departments are conspiring with a private company called Vigilant Solutions in an outrageous scheme to maximize the extortion of citizens, while collecting reams of personal information to use for commercial profit.

In the deal—dubbed "warrant redemption"—Texas law enforcement agencies get free automated license plate readers (ALPRs) as well as access to Vigilant's massive database and analytical tools. In exchange for this, police departments give Vigilant all of the data they collect on drivers, along with access to information about all outstanding court fees. The cops don't pay a dime, and Vigilant uses this information for nearly unlimited commercial purposes.

ALPRs are becoming increasingly common in law enforcement, being a form of mass surveillance, collecting real-time information on people's whereabouts and feeding it into databases to access at any time. Regardless of whether you are suspected of a crime, these systems are tracking your movements, telling law enforcement things like what doctors you visit, what political activities you participate in, and where you sleep at night.

Comment: These license plate readers will certainly not be utilized in white, affluent communities. This is just another tactic that these tools of the state can employ to keep their boots on the necks of the common man and woman.

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Attention

Using kids as lead detectors: Six cities in Michigan have higher levels of lead than Flint

Carey Wedler
The Anti Media
Thu, 28 Jan 2016 18:40 UTC
tap water
As the nation rightly focuses on Flint's ongoing water crisis, other cities in the state of Michigan face even higher levels of lead contamination. The alarming pervasiveness of potentially toxic drinking water extends across the United States.

The Detroit News reports that "Elevated blood-lead levels are seen in a higher percentage of children in parts of Grand Rapids, Jackson, Detroit, Saginaw, Muskegon, Holland and several other cities, proof that the scourge of lead has not been eradicated despite decades of public health campaigns and hundreds of millions of dollars spent to find and eliminate it."

Of over 7,000 children tested in the Highland Park and Hamtramck areas of Detroit in 2014, 13.5 percent tested positive for lead. Among four zip codes in Grand Rapids, one in ten children had lead in their blood. In Adrian and south-central Michigan, more than 12 percent of 640 children tested had positive results.
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Star of David

IDF soldiers who filmed their drive-by shooting of a camel sentenced to prison


RT
Fri, 29 Jan 2016 18:29 UTC
IDF shoot camel
© Alap-Alap / YouTube
Two soldiers from an Israeli Defense Force (IDF) elite unit have been sentenced to several months in jail as well as demoted for shooting a camel in the West Bank and filming the attack.

A video of the incident surfaced online earlier sparking outrage on social media.

The footage shows one of the soldiers driving through the desert and shooting a camel, while the other one filmed the incident. As the first soldier pulls the trigger, the other one is heard hysterically laughing as they drive away. The camel later presumably died, according to the Haaretz newspaper.

The soldier with the gun was sentenced to four months in prison, while the second one was given a two-month jail sentence. Both were demoted in rank to private.


Comment: On the one hand, this is very disturbing behavior for anyone, bordering on psychopathic. On the other, it highlights the great disparity that the entire Israeli military shows between the Palestinian people and in animals. The Israeli authorities apparently see animals as more sacred than Palestinians. IDF officers can kill innocent Palestinian civilians with impunity, but they get jail sentences for shooting a camel. Something is seriously wrong with that. The comment above from the animal rights activist is interesting: ""Where did their compassion go, the mercy toward defenseless creatures?". If the activist was paying any attention at all, he would see that the IDF has long ago lost any compassion for defenseless people, so why would he expect any different behavior towards animals?

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V

Recent poll finds 40% of Germans want Merkel to resign due to refugee policy


RT
Fri, 29 Jan 2016 18:20 UTC
Angela Merkel
© Fabrizio Bensch / ReutersGerman Chancellor Angela Merkel
Forty percent of Germans are apparently not satisfied with Chancellor Angela Merkel's refugee policy and want her to resign, according to a recent poll.

The Insa survey for Focus magazine polled 2,047 German citizens from January 22-25, Reuters reported.

However, 45.2 percent of Germans said Merkel's migrant policy was not the reason for her to leave her post.

Merkel has come under fire for her welcoming policy toward refugees, who have recently arrived in Germany in unprecedented numbers. However, she claims that the country can cope with the 1.1 million that arrived in 2015, and potentially more in 2016.

Comment: It sure looks like all the efforts by clandestine US agencies to disrupt Germany, and the EU, have at least partially worked. One has to imagine that if Merkel were to fall completely in line with US diktats, the country would have much fewer incidents of "Arab men" attacking local Germans.

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Quenelle - Golden

Activists to protest UK weapons killing Yemeni civilians at 'swanky' London arms banquet


RT
Fri, 29 Jan 2016 17:16 UTC
anti-war protest activist
© Stringer / Reuters
Anti-arms trade campaigners will protest outside the glamorous Hilton Hotel on London's lavish Park Lane next week as arms giants and MPs gather for their swanky annual industry dinner.

The demonstration follows similar protests in 2015, when a pregnant activist stormed onto the podium during dinner to give an impassioned speech about the devastating effects of the arms trade.
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Safe

Economic chaos and the coming capital controls

Nick Giambruno
Activist Post
Wed, 27 Jan 2016 00:00 UTC
capital control
The carnage always comes by surprise, often on an otherwise ordinary Saturday morning...

The government declares a surprise bank holiday. It shuts all the banks. It imposes capital controls to stop citizens from taking their money out of the country. Cash-sniffing dogs, which make drug-sniffing dogs look friendly, show up at airports.

At that point, the government is free to help itself to as much of the country's wealth as it wants. It's an all-you-can-steal buffet.

This story has recently played out in Greece, Cyprus, Argentina, and Iceland. And those are only a few recent examples. It's happened in scores of other countries throughout history. And I think it's inevitable in the U.S.

I believe the U.S. dollar will lose its role as the world's premier reserve currency. When that happens, capital controls are sure to follow.

This is why it's crucial to your financial future to understand what capital controls are, how they are used, and what you can do to protect yourself.

Comment: If all banks are in lockdown within the US, how practical would it be to keep one's money in any bank - even if it is a foreign bank - unless one can just fly out of the country and withdraw their funds? Some other thoughts about retaining the value of one's savings may be found here:

2015, the BRICS checkmate Western finance?

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Magnify

After four decades, U.S. returns looted 'Bluebeard' head of Hades to Italy


RT
Fri, 29 Jan 2016 13:28 UTC
head of Hades - Bluebeard
© Farnesina/FlickrThe head arrives in Italy.
The head of Hades, Greek God of the Underworld (and the original hipster judging by his beard), finally returned home to Sicily Friday after four decades in the hands of thieves and collectors.

Known as "Bluebeard" due to the pigment of its curly whiskers, the terracotta artifact was stolen from the Italian island in the 1970s before finding its way illegally to Los Angeles' controversial J Paul Getty Museum (aka "the Getty"), named after the oil baron who built it.

The home of the stolen head, which is more than 2,000 years old, was identified when archaeologists discovered fragments of its blue 'facial hair' at an excavation site in Sicily.

A deal was made to return the head from the US in 2013, where it remained in storage until Italian officials could arrange for its homecoming.


This ends one chapter in the Getty's storied history - replete with intrigue, tax fraud, and global art smuggling.

Two men who literally wrote the book about it, titled Chasing Aphrodite: The Hunt for Looted Antiquities at the World's Richest Museums, explained how the museum went from a private tax shelter housed in Getty's Malibu home to the "800-pound gorilla of the art world" and the scene of "one of the largest museum tax frauds in American history".

A Getty plan in 1977 to avoid California taxes by displaying six items in Colorado, including a $5 million Greek statue, backfired when authorities found out and levied a $330,000 tax against the owners, according to a UPI story at the time.

Comment: See also: NY Mummy Smugglers Reveal Vast Antiquities Black Market

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