Society's ChildS


Ambulance

New York EMTs jump in to help handcuffed man being beaten by NYPD

Barbara Goldberg
Therawstory.com
Tue, 05 Aug 2014 10:20 UTC
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© NYDailynews
The New York Police Department said on Tuesday it was investigating a report that two emergency medical technicians jumped in to stop four police officers who were punching a handcuffed patient.

The NYPD's Internal Affairs unit was looking into the report that the officers repeatedly struck a shackled and handcuffed patient on a stretcher before the New York Fire Department EMTs intervened to end the beating, an NYPD spokesman said.

He declined to confirm details of the July 20 incident at the 67th Precinct station house in the East Flatbush section of Brooklyn, which was first reported by the New York Daily News. Fire Department officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Citing an FDNY report, the Daily News said the police officers and the EMTs had been called to the station house to help transport the patient, who was combative and banging his head against the wall, to a nearby hospital.

The emotionally disturbed patient spit on the officers and swore at them, and they responded by hitting him in the face, pulling him off the stretcher to the ground and then hurling him back onto the stretcher, the Daily News said.

Comment: With the violent history of the NYPD and what recently happened to Eric Garner, hopefully more people will stand up against this sort of horrific brutality.
  • NYPD Twitter campaign backfires, flooded with photos of police abuse
  • Father of six dies after New York police place him in chokehold for selling untaxed cigarettes


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Camera

Haunting photos reveal the lives of Syrian refugees

Matthew Tucker
Buzzfeed
Tue, 05 Aug 2014 18:02 UTC
Now in its fourth year, the Syrian war is as bloody as ever, with more than 170,000 people killed in the conflict since 2011, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Journalist and photographer Ben Taub has spent recent weeks in Kilis, a Turkish city near the Syrian border, documenting the lives of people displaced by the ongoing horror of war.

"Syria's war can be heard every day in distant booms and ambulance sirens," Taub told BuzzFeed. "For most Syrians, escaping the line of fire does not qualify as having left the war behind, as the crisis continues to haunt those from whom it took homes, friends, family members, pets, comfort, and sometimes limbs."

Taub said he wants his work to "give a sense of this loss, but also a glimmer of hope through the strength and resilience Syria's civilians demonstrate in spite of what war has taken from them."
syrian refugee
© Ben TaubA Syrian refugee who suffers from a congenital heart disorder, living in a makeshift camp in Kilis.
"Bakri Douer's son didn't give a name, but did explain that he's in need of medical care for a congenital heart condition. A long-healed scar bisects his ribcage from prior heart surgery. While medical care and NGO support is readily available to registered Syrian refugees in southern Turkey, residents of the makeshift camp lack documents and have no addresses, no running water, and no electricity for which to pay and show utility bills as proof of residency. Proof of residency would render him eligible for the medical treatment he needs. Meanwhile, he can sometimes be found begging in front of the few hotels in Kilis."
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People 2

Pennsylvania mother discovers son is dead after smelling foul odor in home

David Dekok
Reuters
Mon, 04 Aug 2014 18:33 UTC
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A mother, alerted by a foul odor, found out her son died four days earlier in their Pennsylvania home, and on Monday an autopsy was under way and the boy's father remained jailed in the case.

The 8-year-old boy, Jarrod Tutko, Jr., was among five children in the family who suffer from medical or developmental problems, according to the Harrisburg Patriot-News website.

He was being cared for by his father in an upper bedroom of the Harrisburg home while his mother, Kimberly Tutko, tended to his 10-year-old sister, who is comatose, on another floor, according to the Patriot-News website.

The mother had not seen the boy, who was prone to smear feces on himself, in four years out of fear she would carry an infection back to his sister, the news site reported.
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Stock Down

Chair of British firm that provides bulldozers to Israelis whines that EU sanctions on Russia will hurt his business (and incidentally result in UK job losses)


RT
Tue, 05 Aug 2014 11:02 UTC
jobs centre
© Reuters / Stefan Wermuth
One of Britain's most powerful businessmen has sharply criticized EU-US sanctions against Putin's government, warning they lack foresight and could result in countless UK job losses.

Lord Bramford, chairman of engineering firm JCB, said it was "absurd" that his company - a prolific dealer to Russia and Britain's market leader in construction machinery - would be severely impacted by an array of sanctions emanating from Brussels. Decisions orchestrated by EU diplomats, could jeopardize British jobs, he added.

Lord Bramford's comments followed an EU government decision to enforce further economic sanctions against the Russian Federation in the aftermath of the Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 tragedy in eastern Ukraine in July.

In the most heated phase of geopolitical tensions between Moscow and the West since the close of the Cold War, the sanctions are targeted at Russia's oil, defense, dual-use goods and sensitive technology industries.
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Gold Bar

Man of conscience: Putin wants countermeasures to Western sanctions that support domestic manufacturers without hurting consumers


RT
Tue, 05 Aug 2014 15:07 UTC
Putin
© RIA Novosti / Alexey NikolskyRussian President Vladimir Putin
Russian President Vladimir Putin has urged his government to come up with countermeasures to Western sanctions imposed against Russia over the Ukrainian conflict.

Putin stressed that Moscow's response should be "cautious."

"Obviously we need to do it cautiously in order to support domestic manufacturers, but not hurt consumers," he said on Tuesday.

The president expects the government to present a response to the sanctions as soon as possible.

Putin said that the political tools of pressure being used against the Russian economy are unacceptable, stressing that they go against international rules and norms.

Putin's comments come on the same day Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said that Moscow will consider possible responses to EU sanctions against Russian airlines.

Comment: Is Putin incorruptible? U.S. insider's view of the Russian president's character and his country's transformation

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Passport

Dual citizen burns Israeli passport at Downing Street in protest of IDF assault on Gaza


RT
Tue, 05 Aug 2014 14:16 UTC
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© RT
A British citizen has renounced her dual nationality by burning her Israeli passport outside Downing Street in a protest against the IDF's assault on Gaza, and the British government's ongoing support for Israel.

Sonya Levene, supported by the campaign group Jews For Justice For Palestine, told onlookers she wished to denounce Israel's actions in Gaza, which have killed more than 1,800 people according the official UN estimates.

"Why should I, a third generation British Jew of Eastern European heritage with no link to Israel, accept what the Zionists would have you believe is written in the Bible?" Levene said in a speech at the gates to Downing Street.

The dual citizenship was forced upon Sonya, she claims, after she attempted to leave Israel after a year spent with her family around 20 years ago. She was told she needed to accept the citizenship if she wished to return to Israel. She understands it is now very unlikely she will ever see her family there again.

Over 460,000 Gazans have been displaced by Operation Protective Edge, with over 80 percent of those killed believed to be civilians. Israel has lost a total of 64 IDF troops since the assault began.
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Cowboy Hat

Snowden goes to the opera! Makes first public appearance, visits Bolshoi theatre


RT
Tue, 05 Aug 2014 19:40 UTC
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Google translation: Edward Snowden secretly visited the opera at the Bolshoi Theater.
The US whistleblower Edward Snowden has visited Moscow's Bolshoi Theatre in his first public appearance since coming to Russia a year ago. Reporters were hardly able to recognize the former CIA employee without his signature look glasses.

The NSA whistleblower apparently decided to mark a year of asylum in Russia by making a public appearance. He attended the Tsar's Bride opera in Moscow's historic Bolshoi Theatre.
Эдвард Сноуден тайно посетил оперу в Большом театре http://t.co/Vm9E3twAH9pic.twitter.com/RsvMrH9Ez7
- LIFENEWS (@lifenews_ru) August 5, 2014
Snowden slipped in almost unnoticed. He sat in one of the theatre's boxes, admiring Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov's opera that recounts a tragic love story during the time of Ivan the Terrible's reign in Russia.
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Cult

Religious scholar blasts charlatan preachers for promoting materialist 'prosperity gospel'

Eric W. Dolan
The Raw Story
Tue, 05 Aug 2014 10:57 UTC
Reza Aslan
Reza Aslan
Religious scholar Reza Aslan blasted proponents of the so-called "prosperity gospel" last month, claiming the materialistic Christian movement ran directly counter to the teachings of Jesus.

Aslan was speaking at the 2014 Indian Summer Festival in Vancouver about his book, Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth.

During a question and answer session, the University of California at Riverside professor was asked about the portrayal of Jesus in movies.

"I love all fictional presentations of Jesus. I think they are fantastic, whether it is the Last Temptation of Christ or The Passion - both of which are fiction. But - sorry about that, did I break that to you? - but again for me what is fascinating about those is it is just a representation of what I have been talking about all along, which is the incredible malleability of the Christ story, the way that it can become whatever you want it to become."

Comment: Americans embrace the gospel of wealth as most are taught from birth to be consumers with their primary goal the ongoing accumulation of wealth, which is supposed to provide the best opportunity available for attaining happiness. Wealth is their god and the pursuit of money appears to be much easier than actually attempting to live by the principles of equality, generosity and love of one's neighbor. In all fairness it should be pointed out that, considering the state of the economy, most Americans may just be engaging in wishful thinking as they are desperate to find a solution to the overwhelming poverty and stress most are forced to endure.

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Pistol

Psycho Texas police officer placed on leave for supermarket shooting spree Facebook threat


RT
Tue, 05 Aug 2014 16:05 UTC
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© The Marlin Democrat/Steve SnyderMarlin Police Chief Darrell Allen, left, poses with detective Rob Douglas, right, with cards and sacks of candy that school children created as a way of saying “thank you” during National Police Officer Week in May 2013.
A police officer in central Texas has been placed on paid administrative leave while investigators consider whether a recent Facebook posting by the cop in which he discussed massacring food stamp recipients violated departmental policy.

According to KWTX News, Marlin Police Sgt. Rob Douglas already admitted that he authored a rant on his public Facebook profile last week mocking "the useless turd bags" he encounters at the grocery store on the first of the month - the day that public assistance, like welfare checks and food stamps, are usually made available to the needy.

"The first of the month! The day I absolutely LOVE going to the grocery store after putting in 120+ hours last month," Sgt. Douglas wrote. "I love being able to see how the useless lazy turd bags spend the hard earned money my working friends and I provided for them so they can sit on their lazy asses all month and drink the beer I am paying for."

Douglas went on to ridicule the "thousands of dollars" in tattoos and car rims he believes are bought with taxpayer money, then issued a grim warning that has made some residents of Marlin, TX quite uncomfortable.
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Blackbox

Japanese scientist involved in stem-cell research commits suicide


RT
Tue, 05 Aug 2014 16:21 UTC
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© Reuters/KyodoYoshiki Sasai, deputy director of the Riken's Center for Developmental Biology.
A Japanese scientist who believed he had helped create revolutionary advances in stem-cell research, which were later discredited, has committed suicide. Yoshiki Sasai, who thought he could replace damaged cells or grow human organs, hanged himself.

The 52-year-old, who was the deputy chief of the Riken Institute for Developmental Biology, had been suffering from stress and exhaustion for months, ever since holes began to appear in his research in March, Reuters reported. The material had initially been published in January in the British journal Nature. He was found at the Riken Institute early on Tuesday in the city of Kobe.

A security guard found him suffering from a heart attack, with a rope around his neck, according to the Riken Institute. Sasai was rushed to hospital, but was pronounced dead two hours later, AP stated.

"It is very unfortunate that this happened," said the government's top spokesman, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga. "Mr. Sasai contributed greatly in the field of developmental biology and was an internationally renowned researcher."
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