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UN report: Number of refugees from Ukraine exceeding 900,000


ITAR-TASS
Sat, 27 Jun 2015 14:23 UTC
Image
© Anton Novoderezhkin/ITAR-TASS
Number of Ukrainians who have fled to neighboring countries after the outbreak of the armed civil conflict in Donbass in spring 2014 has exceeded 900,000 and most of them have found shelter in Russia, of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said in a report on Friday.

Information from governmental sources in the host countries suggests that the overall number of refugees seeking shelter or looking for other legal forms of residence in neighboring states has reached 900,300 people and most of them, or 746,000 have headed for Russia.

Country of destination number two for them is Belarus where 81,200 refugees have arrived, the report indicated.

Comment: A very sad and unnecessary consequence perpetrated by US/NATO/EU in the name of "freedom and democracy".

Libya, Syria, Ukraine: It's worse than we can imagine

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Smoking

The world's top 10 tobacco smoking nations

Donald Armbrecht
World Economic Forums
Thu, 25 Jun 2015 14:17 UTC
Image
© Reuters/Phil Noble
Only 10 years ago, it was common to find smokers in major European cities having a cigarette in bars, restaurants and even on public transport. The subsequent crackdown on smoking in Western Europe has changed habits drastically.

While tobacco consumption in the West seems to be on the decline, new research suggests that it is on the rise in the developing world. According to the WHO, of the 1 billion global smokers, almost 80% are in a low or middle-income countries.

Of those, Chinese smokers consume more than all other low- and middle-income countries combined. To combat this, the Chinese government has clamped down on existing smoking bans, reinforcing them with hefty fines, and levying a full ban on public smoking in Beijing.

So of the 5.8 trillion cigarettes smoked in 2014, which countries consumed the most?
Image
© Tobaccoatlas.org

Comment: See also: Let's All Light Up!

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People

Austrians launch petition to quit EU


RT
Sat, 27 Jun 2015 14:03 UTC
Image
© Reuters / Laszlo Balogh
A barbed wire is seen in front of a European Union flag at an immigration reception centre in Bicske, Hungary June 25, 2015.
Austrians have launched a petition to quit the EU, arguing that the nation will be better off economically if it leaves the union. To force the national parliament to consider the initiative activists need to have gathered 100,000 signatures by July 1.

The petition was started by a retired 66-year-old translator, Inge Rauscher, who has collected enough signatures to launch an official campaign. The plea seeks to request that the national parliament debate the idea of a referendum on quitting the EU. However, to get that issue even discussed, the petition must gather 100,000 signatures.

"We want to go back to a neutral and peace-loving Austria," Rauscher said at the start of the campaign this week. Austrians have until July 1 to sign the petition which they can do in municipal or district offices.

Comment: Looks like the EU is on its last legs. The Austrian Federal Minister bashed the Greek government for holding a referendum but will soon face the same problem in his own country.
Austrian Federal Minister Hans Joerg Schelling bashed the Greek government on Saturday for losing time on bickering over reforms proposals and eventually dropping out of talks to declare a snap referendum, in what he said was an untimely thing to do.


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X

Chuck it in the bin: UK police offer 'amnesty' for surrendering knives

Mac Slavo
SHTFplan.com
Fri, 26 Jun 2015 12:56 UTC
knife surrender bin
Don't try to think this one through.

The logic fail and sheer volume of absurdity might just make you sick if you do.

For the UK - whose laws and policies all-too-often influence those of the U.S. - gun control isn't enough. Probably nothing will ever be enough.

Now a call to surrender knives, ongoing for years, is in full swing. Via Citizen Action:
The right to bear arms might be under attack here in America - but in the United Kingdom, police are trying to do something even more ridiculous: they're attempting to ban knives.
The British police have recently joined forces with liberal grassroots activists in the UK, launching the "Save a Life - Surrender Your Knife" program. Knife crime has been climbing recently in major UK cities like London.
The program involved several weeks of "amnesty" for "pointed knives." Civilians can turn in these apparently dangerous weapons at their local police station in exchange for "amnesty," apparently, even though knives (rounded or pointed) aren't illegal in the United Kingdom.

Comment: This is what happens when nutters are in charge of public policy.

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Camera

North Charleston cop fired over Confederate flag boxers pic while thug officers get away with murder

Melissa Dykes
The Daily Sheeple
Fri, 26 Jun 2015 12:46 UTC
Sgt. Shannon Dildine
North Charleston officer fired over Confederate flag boxers Facebook photo http://t.co/3La8DsUcHf

— FOX8 WGHP (@myfox8) June 26, 2015
There's a reason I took the time to point this out real quick. According to Raw Story:
Police Chief Eddie Driggers said the photo undermines the trust and confidence citizens have in police because the Confederate flag "symbolizes hate and oppression to a significant portion of the citizens we are sworn to serve."
Dildine has ten days to appeal. I suspect he'll be going with freedom of expression. It is, after all, his underwear...
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Crusader

Pope Francis: Sometimes divorce can be a 'moral necessity'


RT
Thu, 25 Jun 2015 09:54 UTC
Pope Francis
© Reuters / Pope Francis
Pope Francis
Pope Francis may go down in history as the Catholic leader most actively supporting divorce, after saying the practice was "morally necessary." However, the pontiff's position could face obstacles at an upcoming bishops' meeting.

The Catholic Church is known worldwide for being staunchly anti-divorce, but according to Francis there are certain moral imperatives, which make divorce a lesser evil. He was talking about the humiliation a wife could suffer at the hands of an abusive spouse. Also, if there are children, their safety must be considered.

The Pope's remarks come ahead of an important bishops' conference set to mull over many issues Catholics consider crucial, including whether remarried divorcees can take communion.

"There are cases in which separation is inevitable," Francis told an audience gathered on St. Peters Square.
"Sometimes, it can even be morally necessary, when it's about shielding the weaker spouse or young children from the more serious wounds caused by intimidation and violence, humiliation and exploitation.".
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Magnify

Dylann Roof and the Charleston massacre media coverage: Recognizing the crime, downplaying the causes

Ben Norton
Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting
Wed, 24 Jun 2015 20:38 UTC
Image
When a white male kills people in a mass shooting in the US, the corporate media follow an algorithm not unlike the Kübler-Ross model of the five stages of grief.

First, media deny that the attack constitutes terrorism. In their view, acts of political violence carried out against civilians are indisputably terrorism when they are committed by a Muslim, but this is not necessarily the case when they are committed by a white person.

This is the stage in which most media coverage of shootings by white Americans remains stuck. When Elliot Rodger massacred six people and injured 14 more in May 2014, he was not classified as a terrorist—even though he explicitly stated that his attack was motivated by an intense hatred of women, and that he sought to "punish" women, collectively, for "rejecting" him in the past.

Yet because of mounting pressure and criticism from independent media, activists and social media, in the wake of mass shooting after mass shooting carried out disproportionately by white men, corporate media are no longer able to remain in a state of such denial.

Comment: Another possibility, aside from Dylann Roof being influenced by far-right racist groups to demonize blacks and ultimately shoot and kill them, is that Dylann Roof was not so in control of himself as most think he was. Is it possible that he was a mind-controlled shooter?

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Whistle

Judge blasts government for seizing $176,000 from man pulled over for driving slow, orders money returned

David Edwards
Raw Story
Thu, 25 Jun 2015 20:26 UTC
Image
© Shutterstock
A federal judge accused the U.S. government of a "lack of candor" and ordered it to return $167,000 that was seized from a man who was stopped for a minor traffic violation.

According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, a Nevada state trooper stopped Straughn Gorman's motor home on Interstate 80 in January 2013 for allegedly driving too slow.


Comment: It's worth noting that it took this man over 2 years to get his money back. Most people would not be able to afford to hire an attorney to fight for them for that long. The government counts on that, and that is why civil forfeiture is a scam by our government:

After Gorman declined to let the trooper search his vehicle, the trooper let him go without a citation. But the trooper radioed ahead for a Elko County sheriff's deputy to perform a second stop with a drug-sniffing dog.

The dog alerted the deputy to something suspicious in the motor home, and $167,000 was found hidden throughout the vehicle. Gorman's money was turned over to federal authorities to initiate civil forfeiture proceedings, but he was never charged with a crime.
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Star of David

Karma: Israel sees foreign investment plummet by 50% since Gaza massacre

Ali Abunimah
Electronic Intifada
Fri, 26 Jun 2015 17:30 UTC
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Foreign investment in Israel plummeted almost 50 percent in 2014, a fact attributed to last summer's assault on Gaza and the growing impact of boycotts.

This week the UN's trade and development agency UNCTAD released its annual World Investment Report on foreign direct investment (FDI) - a measure of money that investors from overseas put into a country to invest in businesses, build factories or start other economic projects.

According to the report, FDI into Israel in 2014 plummeted to just $6.4 billion from almost $12 billion in 2013.

The 2014 figure appears to be the lowest in more than a decade. Foreign direct investment into Israel averaged around $9 billion per year from 2005 to 2012.

"We believe that what led to the drop in investment in Israel are Operation Protective Edge and the boycotts Israel is facing," Roni Manos, an Israeli economist who co-authored the report, told Israel's Ynet.
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Sheriff

15 most outrageous responses by police after killing unarmed people

Bill Quigley
AlterNet
Wed, 24 Jun 2015 17:10 UTC
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Police kill a lot of unarmed people. So far in 2015, as many as 100 unarmed people have been killed by police.

There have been around 400 fatal police shootings; one in six of those killings, 16 percent, were of unarmed people, 49 had no weapon at all and 13 had toy guns, according to the Washington Post. Of the police killings this year less than 1 percent have resulted in the officer being charged with a crime. The Guardian did a study which included killings by Tasers and found 102 people killed by police so far in 2015 were unarmed and that unarmed black people are twice as likely to be killed by police as whites.

Here are 15 of the most outrageous reasons given by police to justify killing unarmed people in the last 12 months.

Comment: It's been starkly clear to police officers that they will not be punished for what is essentially murder. The system is set up to protect the authorities and the police exist to protect the rich and powerful. The rest of us can be murdered with impunity. Welcome to 21st century freedom in the good ole USA.

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