Society's ChildS


Megaphone

"We've had enough": France's Yellow Vests describe deteriorating quality of life

Alex Lantier
World Socialist Web
Mon, 17 Dec 2018 12:00 UTC
yellow vests flag paris
© Valery Hache/Agence France-PresseYellow vest protesters on the Chanps-Elysees in Paris, December 15, 2018.
"Yellow vest" protesters mobilized for a fifth day of action in France on Saturday, facing a new police crackdown and clashes centered in provincial cities, as fewer protesters traveled to Paris.

Yellow Vest protesters on Opéra square

The interior ministry claimed that some 66,000 people had protested across France, down by half after the brutal crackdown organized the previous week in Paris. The mobilization in the capital was certainly smaller this Saturday, as thousands marched and clashed with police in large provincial cities across the coutnry.

In Paris, several thousand protested and 144 people were held in preventive detention, amid a new massive police clampdown in the capital. Large parts of the city and subway system were shut down, as armored cars, water cannon, horse-mounted military police, and riot police firing rubber bullets and tear gas occupied much of the city.


Comment: Amnesty International's damning report of violence by France's police on protesters, journalists and children


Comment: See also: And check out SOTT radio's:

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X

Anything goes: Tanks on Maidan, president's gold bath, outrageous Ukraine fakes by disgraced Spiegel reporter


RT
Sat, 22 Dec 2018 20:52 UTC
Fake reporting
© Reuters/Kham; Global Look Press/Lefort Zentaro; Reuters/Gleb Garanich
One wonders just how outrageous 'fake news' must be in order to get busted, but Der Spiegel's ex-star reporter Claas Relotius got away with it all while writing for several outlets - maybe because it was about places like Ukraine.

Titled 'Bribing prohibited' Relotius' piece on the new Ukrainian police has all the elements of his trademark style: dramatic narrative, likeable heroes - and entirely made-up 'facts'.

The 'report', published by the Swiss magazine Reportagen in June 2016, tells a tale of two young people - Dimitri and Valeria - who became members of the rebranded police force of post-Maidan Ukraine. Given the recent revelations over his fictional reporting, it's now unclear whether Relotius met the duo in reality, but the story makes for a very compelling read indeed.

It states that each day before going on patrol, Dimitri and Valeria have been coming to the center of Kiev to pray near the "altar" erected in memory of those who died during the 2014 Euromaidan unrest. The two were among the protesters back then, it reveals, describing how they recall burning buildings, the "smell of corpses," a man "with a child in his arms" shot dead beside an old well - and a ruined wall, where dozens were "slayed by snipers" and "rolled over by tanks."

Wait, what? Given that the majority of victims in Kiev - both protesters and law enforcement officers - were killed over two days of murky clashes in February 2014, the "smell" of dead bodies appears to be a little of an exaggeration. No "old wells" could immediately be found in central Kiev, and there's nothing to back up the story about a "man with a child" either.

Comment: See also:

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Better Earth

'Freegans' in Singapore find treasure in trash


Times of Malta/Reuters
Sun, 23 Dec 2018 19:57 UTC
Filipina Maids in Singapore
© Times of MaltaFilipina domestic workers grab free items during a giveaway of donated and dumpster dived items at the house of Singaporean freegan Colin Lau.
A new movement in Singapore that seeks to reduce the amount of consumer waste in the affluent city-state is scavenging for unwanted goods, some in near-mint condition, that migrant workers can send home for the holidays.

"Freegans", broadly defined as people committed to cutting wasteful production and consumption, have connected with thousands of foreign labourers from lower-income countries, many of whom cannot afford the products sold in the city's shiny shopping malls.

In Singapore, the luxurious backdrop for the movie Crazy Rich Asians, what passes as trash for one household ends up in a shipping container on its way to the home country of a migrant worker.

"We should give whatever we have in excess to the poor instead of throwing it away," said Colin Lau, a member of the "Freegan in Singapore" Facebook group whose 6,500 members includes Singaporeans and foreigners.

Some members like Lau search dumpsters and rubbish bins, retrieving discarded items and re-using them or sharing with others in an effort to save money and the environment.
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Stock Up

China's One Belt One Road is engine of growth for Eurasia, trade volume over $5 trillion for past five years


RT
Sun, 23 Dec 2018 19:33 UTC
passerby casts a shadow over a map illustrating China’s “One Belt, One Road”
© Reuters/Bobby YipA passerby casts a shadow over a map illustrating China’s “One Belt, One Road” megaproject at the Asian Financial Forum in Hong Kong, China, on January 18, 2016.
It's been five years since Beijing announced the ambitious multi-trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Chinese companies have already built 82 economic and trade cooperation zones in 24 countries along the BRI routes.

The project has created more than 240,000 jobs in BRI countries, according to China's top diplomat Yang Jiechi.

"Over the past five years, trade volume in goods between China and countries involved in the initiative exceeded $5 trillion, and direct investment stands at over $70 billion," said Yang Jiechi, head of the office of Foreign Affairs of China's Communist Party.

He explained that under the framework of the initiative, over 11,000 freight trains are already running between China and Europe. They link nearly 100 cities across the region.
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Camera

Courageous Gaza photographer vows to continue documenting protests despite narrow escape from IDF sniper fire

Ahmad Kabariti
Mondoweiss
Sat, 22 Dec 2018 00:00 UTC
Mohamed Asad Gaza photographer
Mohamed Asad shortly after he was grazed by bullet and his camera destroyed. December 21, 2018.
Gaza photographer Mohammed Asad tells the story of how he miraculously survived gunfire yesterday, just a few feet away from Mohammed al Jahjuh, 16, who was shot dead in the neck by a bullet fired by Israeli soldiers during the ongoing demonstrations near Israel's fence.

"Unlike the past 38 protests, everything was almost quiet except for seven to eight stone throwers, and no burning tires. I had just decided to go home with dozens of photos I took. But I felt someone thought it was time for me to leave, and he sent a bullet to my camera. He was an Israeli military sniper."

"Everything took place in less than a second. When I turned my back to the fence, my camera's strap jumped forward and a sudden sting scratched my cheek. Then I realized a bullet had penetrated the photographic apparatus. But I was completely confused because [Mohammed] al Jahjuh was bleeding and writhing in pain," Asad told Mondoweiss.

Comment: Killing the messenger - Israel targets journalists and photographers to hide their wholesale slaughter of unarmed Palestinians:

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Attention

Liberals more likely to stereotype minorities than conservatives

Kenneth Nelson
Campus Reform
Thu, 20 Dec 2018 17:55 UTC
Trump Carson
An Ivy League study suggests that white liberals are more likely than white conservatives to draw on stereotypes when conversing with minorities.

Cydney Dupree, a Yale University organizational behavior professor, and Susan Fiske, a professor of psychology at Princeton University, conducted the study and found that white liberals tend to use "indirect forms of bias, drawing on negative stereotypes to affiliate with Blacks."

The study, titled "Self-Presentation in Interracial Settings: The Competence Downshift by White Liberals," indicated that liberals are less likely to show competence when speaking to minorities than are conservatives.

Comment: This is the natural result of being obsessed with victim status and race.

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Cross

Pope Frances vows church will never again ignore sex abuse allegations, calls for guilty priests to turn themselves in

Ross Ibbetson
Daily Mail
Sat, 22 Dec 2018 16:09 UTC
Pope Francis
© REUTERS/Max Rossi/File PhotoPope Francis leads a special audience with members of a volunteers association from Sardinia island in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican November 30, 2018.
Pope Francis today vowed the Catholic Church will never again ignore allegations of sexual abuse and called on guilty priests to turn themselves in and face justice.

A litany of child sexual abuse scandals has rocked the Church for decades, with the pope as recently as Wednesday accepting the resignation of a US bishop over 'misconduct' with a minor.

'To those who abuse minors I would say this: convert and hand yourself over to human justice, and prepare for divine justice,' the pope said in his annual address to the Church's governing Curia at the Vatican on Friday.

He also added that he is determined to bring all guilty priests to justice.

Comment: Pope Francis has previously made similar promises, but as the rot runs throughout the Vatican hierarchy, either he is unable or unwilling to follow through on them.

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Info

Study: Average Facebook user would want more than $1k to quit for 1 year


RT
Sun, 23 Dec 2018 10:56 UTC
facebook
© REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration
A new study has tried to estimate how attached users are to their Facebook accounts, by converting their social worth into monetary values. Users were asked how much money would make them quit using the social network.

Facebook has been constantly under fire recently for privacy breaches, political bias and market monopoly, sending its stocks tumbling 6 percent and user trust plummeting - according to surveys, at least. But not trusting Facebook and not using it are not the same thing, a study published earlier this week shows.

Plos One, a privately run peer-reviewed research journal based out of California, decided to assess Facebook's worth not to the stock markets, but to the average user.

The method worked through holding "experimental auctions" where the real money was placed based on their not using the site for various periods of time, from an hour to an entire year. The user essentially "bet" against how much time he or she would have to give up, which was chosen randomly. The study approached various demographics and samples, and yet fairly consistently came up similar results: "we consistently find that our 1,258 auction participants derive over $1000 of value annually on average from Facebook, reinforcing the idea that the computer age's effect on society's well-being is much larger than its effect on GDP. "

Comment: The answer to that lies in the 'dopamine hit' playing on people's psychological and physiological reactions in order to keep them 'hooked'. This is no accident and designed to keep you there as long as possible. A drug addict most likely won't trust their dealer except for the one thing they want - their next fix. See also:

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NPC

Double life of Antifa leader relied on anonymity to push radical and violent Communist goals

Andrew Kerr
The Daily Caller
Tue, 18 Dec 2018 21:49 UTC
Jose Martin / Antifa


Editor's note: The subject of this story is being identified because he's pushed radical rhetoric and has advocated for politically-motivated violence from behind a mask. The Daily Caller News Foundation does not and will not publish truly private information such as home addresses.

Smash Racism DC organizer Jose Martin, also known as "Chepe," is a radical communist and Antifa leader operating in the U.S. He advocates for the violent overthrow of the government and for the murder of the rich and claims to have international involvement in left-wing movements.

Smash Racism DC is the Antifa group that protested in front of Fox News host Tucker Carlson's house and berated Sen. Ted Cruz at a restaurant until he and his wife were forced to leave. It's only one of the Antifa leader's radical left-wing projects.

But the agitator has made great efforts to separate his fanatical personas from a third identity, his legal name: Joseph "Jose" Alcoff. Under that identity, the 36-year-old has worked as a payday campaign manager for Americans for Financial Reform since 2016, where he advocates for reforms of predatory loans before members of Congress.

Comment: Anti-militarism, part of Cop Watch, Occupy Wall Street, etc. - and whatever other good intentions Alcoff may have are completely subverted by his all or nothing stance and pathological insistence on razing everything to the ground in a typically ideologically-possessed and revolutionary fashion.

Have a look at history Alcoff -- the first ones to advocate use of guillotines were eventually made to see those blades up close themselves.

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No Entry

Over one million gun owners have refused to obey ban in New Jersey, no one giving up cartridge magazines

Matt Agorist
The Free Thought Project
Wed, 19 Dec 2018 00:00 UTC
gun control
Residents of New Jersey were given a deadline to turn in their gun magazines or become felons overnight, and so far, no one is complying.

Unless you've been under a rock lately, then you've likely seen the unprecedented push by all levels of government to separate law abiding Americans from their guns. No, this is not some conspiracy theory. The president himself ushered in a new level of gun control doing what his liberal predecessor even refused to do by banning bump stocks. However, as states across the country seek to limit the ability of innocent people to defend themselves, people are disobeying.

In May, Gov. Phil Murphy signed a law that reduced the maximum capacity of ammunition magazines from 15 rounds to 10. Citizens immediately sued the government, citing the unconstitutional nature of the ban, but they failed.

Comment: In the wake of multiple mass shootings (many of them engineered), and a police state that anticipates mass resistance to subjugation - 'gun control' has been ramped up in the US across the board:

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