Society's ChildS


People

Tens of thousands protest in Ukraine's Kiev

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© Sergei ChuzavkovPro-European Union activists gather in Independence Square in Kiev, Ukraine, Sunday, Dec. 29, 2013. About 20,000 people protested in Ukraine’s capital on Sunday, maintaining more than a month of rallies opposing the government’s decision to shelve a key deal with the European Union.
About 20,000 people protested in Ukraine's capital on Sunday, maintaining more than a month of rallies opposing the government's decision to shelve a key deal with the European Union.

But the turnout on a clear, cold day was markedly lower than at previous rallies, which had attracted hundreds of thousands of people.

As it has before, Sunday's rally opened with speeches by the country's spiritual leaders, including Christian priests, a rabbi and a mufti who called for a national unity and stressed the protesters' right to have the government they want.

Oleh Tyahnybok, head of the opposition national party Svoboda notorious for his racist rhetoric, emphasized that Ukrainians in the west and the east should unite to fight for their rights.

"We are all Ukrainians and want our fair demands to be met," he said in his speech.

Most demonstrators in Kiev come from western and central regions, while many people in the mostly Russian-speaking east and the south back closer ties with Moscow.

Black Cat

Convicted sex offender posing as preacher arrested in Reno, Nevada

Bryant sex offender
James Edward Bryant
Hindsight is 20/20 for Darla Ward, the property manager for Reno Motel in downtown, where fugitive sex offender James Edward Bryant had been renting a room for two months.

"He had a bunch of young boys in his room," recalls Ward. "I never seen him with anyone older than maybe 20."
Neighbors called him 'Preacher Man. '

"Every Sunday, he would come over and ask me to go to church and listen to him preach and he would ask us all to go to church," says Ward.

Ward says Bryant even showed her a preacher's certificate, and she thought he was a godly man who was trying to help wayward young men in the area.

"He would feed them. He would let them stay the night sometimes, which we would have arguments about," says Ward. "But he would take care of them."

Comment: For a more complete understanding of how sexual predators like this operate, listen to the SOTT Talk Radio interview with Dr. Anna Salter, author of Predators: Pedophiles, Rapists, and Other Sex Offenders, Who They Are, How They Operate, and How We Can Protect Ourselves and Our Children, and Truth, Lies and Sex Offenders.


V

Turkey: Erdogan under new pressure to quit as protesters take to the streets

Riot police use teargas, water cannon and plastic bullets to break up demonstrations as corruption scandal grows
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© Emrah Gurel/APProtesters run as riot police use water cannon to quell demonstrations in Istanbul.
In scenes reminiscent of this summer's massive anti-government revolts, hundreds of people took to the streets in cities across Turkey on Friday night calling for the government to resign following a high-profile corruption scandal that involves sons of cabinet ministers, leading businessmen and the head of a state-owned bank.

In Istanbul, riot police broke up demonstrations using teargas, water cannon and plastic bullets. According to Turkish media reports, 70 people have been arrested. Protesters chanted "catch the thief", in reference to a highly political corruption probe that started with orchestrated dawn raids on 17 December and is continuing to send shock waves through Turkey, edging ever closer to the heart of the Turkish government.

Seen by many as the most serious challenge to the 11-year rule of Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the corruption investigation has targeted persons known to be close to the government of the Justice and Development party (AKP).

Three ministers were forced to resign when police detained their sons following a long-running investigation into allegations of corruption. Two of the sons are still in custody along with 22 others awaiting trial, facing accusations of corrupt practices, including bribery, tender rigging and illicit money transfers to Iran.

Cult

Rabbi sued after severing newborn baby's penis during circumcision

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© KDKA
A local rabbi is being sued after allegedly botching a bris, the traditional Jewish circumcision ritual, and severing a newborn boy's penis.

The incident detailed in the lawsuit happened at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Squirrel Hill within the last year.

The Jewish circumcision ceremony was performed by Pittsburgh Rabbi Mordechai Rosenberg - who is also a mohel.

Comment: We Need To Stop Circumcision
Infant Died After Contracting Herpes Through Circumcision
US: Brooklyn Toddler Dies After Circumcision
MRSA Deaths in the US Exceed AIDS Deaths: Circumcision is a Culprit


House

UK mortgage rise will plunge a million homeowners into 'perilous debt'

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© Guardian
More than a million homeowners will be at risk of defaulting on their mortgages and losing their properties in the wake of even a small rise in interest rates, a bombshell analysis reveals. Borrowers who have failed to pay down their mortgages when interest rates have been at record low levels now face being overwhelmed by "perilous levels of debt" when the inevitable hike comes.

Gillian Guy, chief executive of Citizens Advice, warned of a "financial ticking timebomb": "The rising cost of energy, food and travel has been absorbing any spare income people may have. This means that in some cases there is little or nothing left to cope with larger mortgage repayments."

According to a new report from an influential thinktank, the Resolution Foundation, even in the most optimistic scenario - in which interest rates rise slowly to 3% by 2018 and economic growth is strong and well-distributed between the rich and poor - 1.12 million homeowners will be spending more than half of their take-home pay on mortgage repayments - this is a widely accepted indicator of over-indebtedness.

Attention

General Mills heiress slain at luxury spa

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© ABC NewsNedenia Post Dye
The great-granddaughter of General Mills heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post was found stabbed to death in her luxury Honduras spa, law enforcement officials told the Associated Press.

Nedenia Post Dye, 46, was found stabbed in her spa on the resort island of Roatan, Honduras on Dec. 22.

Lenin Roberto Arana, 25, was arrested and charged with Dye's murder, police officials told The Associated Press.

Arana allegedly said he and Dye were romantically involved, but police said Dye was trying to help Arana quit drugs, according to the AP.

"She was a good woman who worked with young people at risk, drug addicts and alcoholics," Roatan police chief Alex Madrid told the AP.

Roatan police did not respond to ABC News' attempts to contact them.

Madrid said Arana, a local singer who goes by the stage name "Canary," was soaked in blood when police stopped him in Dye's car. Arana told local reporters that he is innocent.

Dye's great-grandmother, Marjorie Merriweather Post, was a businesswoman and socialite, who inherited the cereal company that would go on to become General Mills.

USA

2013: 2-in-3 call it a 'bad year,' 4-in-10 a disaster for their family

Overshadowed by the bungled debut of Obamacare and congressional gridlock, most Americans in a new poll dubbed 2013 a bad year that will be quickly forgotten. For more than four-in-10, the perils of 2013 hit home hard.

"Put simply, most Americans are happy to see 2013 go," said the latest Economist/YouGov Poll.

- 54 percent called 2013 a "bad year" for the world. Another 15 percent called it a "very bad year," with just 3 percent calling it a "very good year" and 29 percent a "good year."
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© YouGov
- Only 13 percent of Republicans say 2013 has been a good year for the world.

Gold Coins

Overstock CEO: Plans to accept Bitcoin

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© Taylor Hill/Getty ImagesOverstock CEO Patrick Byrne

Overstock.com, which sells everything from bedding to dinnerware online, recently announced it would accept bitcoin as early as June, making it the first U.S. retailer to use the virtual currency. Still in its experimental phase, bitcoin has fluctuated from as low as $13 in January to more than $1,200 in December.

And while it has had a wild ride, Overstock's (OSTK) plans to accept bitcoin as payment shouldn't be read as another bet that the currency will soar higher, says CEO Patrick Byrne.

Fortune caught up with Byrne over telephone on Monday from his office in Utah. The executive is known to be a doomsdayer, siding with the likes of former libertarian U.S. Congressman Ron Paul, who has argued that the U.S. should return to the gold standard and that the Federal Reserve should be abolished.

Byrne thinks bitcoin could be a helpful addition to the payment system, but even he has mixed feelings about the currency. Here's an edited version of our chat:

Heart - Black

Already affecting 71% of U.S. female military personnel by 2004, reported sexual assaults jumped 50% higher in 2013 alone

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© AFP Photo / Ahmad Al-Rubaye
Reported sexual assaults in the US military increased by over 50 percent in 2013, new data reveals. The boost punctuates a year filled with damning disclosures of a culture that has failed to protect the enlisted from systemic levels of sexual violence.

Data obtained by AP shows there were more than 5,000 sexual assault reports during the 2013 fiscal year, which ended on Sept. 30. By contrast, there were 3,374 incidents reported in 2012.

Of the total reports in 2013, around 10 percent involved incidents that happened before the victim was officially in the military - up from 4 percent in 2012. The increase in cases has led military officials to suggest there is more confidence among service members in reporting incidents of sexual assault than in the past.

"Given the multiple data points, we assess that this is more reporting," said Col. Alan R. Metzler, deputy director of the Pentagon's sexual assault prevention and response office, according to AP. Metzler said that more victims are stepping up to make official complaints instead of simply seeking medical care while avoiding formal accusations.

Comment: See also:

'One third of US military women raped':
Back in 2003, a survey of female veterans suggested that 30 percent of the women serving had been raped, while a study conducted in the following year on veterans seeking treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder indicated that 71 percent of the women said they had been sexually assaulted or raped while serving.
At this point in America's descent into oblivion, it's a safe bet that the vast majority of female personnel in the U.S. military have been - or will be - raped or sexually assaulted.


X

In the wealthiest area of the U.S. 7 homeless people have frozen to death this winter

Joe White
Joe White, a homeless man who died during a Bay Area cold snap last weekend, in a photograph with his mother Mary Archuleta
Joe White was this close to making it.

A 50-year-old California man described by relatives as a "loving father and a doting grandfather," White had been living on the streets of Hayward for years. He wanted to work and was able to find odd jobs here and there, but it was never much or consistent enough to afford a place to live. Hayward has no emergency shelter with beds for single men, so White slept outside.

But things were looking up. Last Saturday, White was second on a long list to get permanent supportive housing in Hayward. He had been waiting in line for months and it seemed as though he might finally catch a break.

White died on Sunday.