Society's ChildS


Bomb

Bomb explodes near British embassy in Bahrain


The Guardian
Sun, 04 Dec 2011 15:27 UTC
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© Bahrain interior ministry/EPABahrain has tightened security around embassies in the country after a bus blast near the British embassy in Manama
Bahrain's interior ministry says small blast near embassy in Manama was caused by bomb under a parked minibus

A bomb has exploded near the British embassy in Manama, the Bahraini capital, according to the country's interior ministry.

"Given the strength of the explosion and the debris it scattered, it was a highly explosive substance that was used," a ministry spokesman tweeted from a news conference. "The explosion was the result of a package placed under the front tyre," he said. He described the vehicle as a minibus parked some 50 metres from the embassy compound.

A Foreign Office spokesman said there were no casualties or damage to the compound as a result of the blast, which occurred at around 1.30am. "We are working with Bahrain's interior ministry and we have requested a temporary increase in security," he said. "We cannot yet identify the cause or the responsibility."

There has been widespread tension in Bahrain since pro-democracy protests erupted in February after revolts in Egypt and Tunisia. The government imposed martial law for nearly three months and ordered mass detentions and trials to crush the protests.
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People

Best of the Web: How Unemployment is Tearing America Apart

Jason Kirby
Maclean's
Sun, 04 Dec 2011 00:00 UTC
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© Geoff Lister/The Ubyssey
With 25 million out of work or underemployed, the U.S. is in the grips of a jobs depression

Eight months ago, Deborah Burnley, an administrative assistant in Baltimore, suddenly found herself among America's growing army of unemployed. Losing her job at a cash-strapped non-profit was a demoralizing and debilitating experience, she says, and to keep her spirits from crashing she's sought solace in, of all things, the bleak arithmetic of her job hunt: 226 positions applied for, six temp agencies engaged, and countless miles travelled across the region for interviews. "I try to think of it as a numbers game, that each day is basically one more step closer to being employed," says Burnley, 52. In other words, if she applies for enough positions, and meets enough prospective employers, some day - eventually - she's bound to find work. But even as she clings to that hope, Burnley acknowledges she and her husband, who also lost his job as a facilities manager six weeks ago, have depleted their savings and almost maxed out their credit cards. "It can be hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel."

Two-and-a-half years after the Great Recession was deemed officially over, that light has never seemed dimmer for the close to 25 million Americans who are either out of work or underemployed today. Like a gaping wound at the heart of the economy, the U.S. job crisis has cast a vast swath of the population into a state of semi-permanent unemployment. At the same time, America's housing market is in a shambles and poverty is on the rise. Even if economists weren't already once again warning of another global recession, a realization is slowly setting in: the United States is suffering from an outright economic depression, and it threatens to leave a deep scar on the American psyche for decades to come. As Robert Reich, a professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and a former secretary of labour, put it recently: "America's ongoing jobs depression, which is what it deserves to be called, is the worst economic calamity to hit this nation since the Great Depression."
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Whistle

Pepper spray inventor: it was intended solely for combative people, NOT peaceful protestors


Russia Today
Thu, 01 Dec 2011 14:35 UTC
Since the Occupy movement began we have see cops nationwide abuse pepper spray. From the first incident where NYPD sprayed a group of women protesters to a UC Davis cop spraying a group of non-combatitative student protesters in California. What was the intial purpose of pepper spray? Kamran Loghman, the inventor of pepper spray, tells us what the intentions of the chemical agent are for and why he thinks police are abusing his invention.

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Cow Skull

End of the line for Navajo nation contaminated by uranium ore


Russia Today
Sat, 26 Nov 2011 14:26 UTC
In Northeast Arizona the Navajo nation is living on contaminated land. The land was once full or uranium ore and in the 1940's the Navajo natives were employed by the US government to mine the Uranium ore. But since then the Navajo have been suffering severe health issues from the contamination of the elevated levels of radiation. Marina Portnaya reports.

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USA

Welcome to the American Police State: 75 Years in Prison For Videotaping Police?


NBC 2 Indiana
Mon, 05 Sep 2011 14:13 UTC
The Police State. Are we there yet? In this local NBC news report you will see US cops shooting a man dead, punching women in the face, electrocuting someone pleading for mercy and screaming at a youngster on a skateboard while shoving him to the ground. But none of them are going to jail. Instead, Micheal Allinson is facing 75 years behind bars for 'eavesdropping on the police without their consent' when he recorded police coming to confiscate his car at his mother's home.

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USA

Jack Abramoff: How to Prey, Bribe and Own a US Congressmen?


YouTube
Sun, 04 Dec 2011 09:29 UTC
Crooked lobbyist Jack Abramoff explains how he asserted his influence in Congress for years, and how such corruption continues today despite ethics reform. (mirrored from http://youtu.be/CHiicN0Kg10)


Source: CBS
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Che Guevara

Immortal Technique: 'Revolution here to stay!'


Russia Today
Sun, 04 Dec 2011 04:20 UTC
The following video is the full interview of Marina Portnaya, RT journalist, with rapper Immortal Technique at the Occupy Wall Street camp in New York in October. IT has some prescient things to say about the movement and what it is up against.

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People

US: Initiative would let illegal immigrants work in California legally


Arizona Daily Star
Sat, 03 Dec 2011 00:00 UTC
Nearly 1 million undocumented immigrants could live and work openly in California with little or no fear of deportation under an initiative unveiled Friday by a state legislator and others.

Assemblyman Felipe Fuentes, a Democrat, is helping spearhead the measure, called the California Opportunity and Prosperity Act.

The proposal was filed Friday with the state Attorney General's Office, marking a first step toward a drive to collect the 504,760 voter signatures needed to qualify for the ballot.

Fuentes called the measure a "moderate, common-sense approach" necessitated by the federal government's inability to pass comprehensive immigration reform.
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Heart - Black

US: Man dead at Occupy campsite on North Texas campus


The Associated Press
Sat, 03 Dec 2011 00:00 UTC
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© unknown
An official at the University of North Texas says a man has been found dead at a campsite on the school's campus where Occupy Denton protesters have been gathering.

The Dallas Morning News reports that university spokesman Buddy Price says officers from the school's police department found the man's body Saturday after someone called authorities. Price says no one else was at the encampment when police arrived.

He told the newspaper the man is believed to have been a member of the Occupy Denton encampment.

The man's name and age have not been released. An autopsy is pending.

University police referred calls to Price on Saturday night. Price did not immediately return a phone call to The Associated Press.

Denton is about 40 miles northwest of Dallas.

Source: The Dallas Morning News
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Stormtrooper

US: 85-year-old says she was strip searched at JFK

Colleen Long
The Associated Press
Sat, 03 Dec 2011 00:00 UTC
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© The Associated Press/Bruce ZimmermanLenore Zimmerman, 85, who arrived in a wheelchair for a flight at New York’s Kennedy Airport on Tuesday, Nov. 29, 2011, said that she was required to go through a strip search after she asked to be patted down instead. She was concerned that passing through the airport’s body scanner would interfere with her defibrillator.
An 85-year-old woman said Saturday that she was injured and humiliated when she was strip searched at an airport after she asked to be patted down instead of going through a body scanner, allegations that transportation security officials denied.

Lenore Zimmerman said she was taken to a private room and made to take off her pants and other clothes after she asked to forgo the screening because she worried it would interfere with her defibrillator. She missed her flight and had to take one 2 1/2 hours later, she said.

"I'm hunched over. I'm in a wheelchair. I weigh under 110 pounds (50 kilograms)," she said from her winter home at a seniors community in Coconut Creek, Florida. "Do I look like a terrorist?"

But the Transportation Security Administration said in a statement Saturday that no strip search was conducted.

"While we regret that the passenger feels she had an unpleasant screening experience, TSA does not include strip searches as part of our security protocols and one was not conducted in this case," the statement read.
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