Society's ChildS


Heart - Black

Saudi Arabia's male guardianship still limits women's rights - reforms on paper only


RT
Sun, 17 Jul 2016 03:33 UTC
human rights women saudi arabia
© Stringer / Reuters
The latest report from Human Rights Watch has revealed that obligatory male guardianship in Saudi Arabia remains a key obstacle to women's rights. Adult women have to get permission from men to travel abroad, marry, or be freed from prison.

These rules apply from cradle to grave, as women are always regarded as legal minors in Saudi Arabia.

The 79-page report entitled "Boxed In: Women in Saudi Arabia's Male Guardianship System" studies the formal and informal obstacles that Saudi women face daily.

The title derives from one account given by a 25-year-old Saudi woman, who said "We all have to live in the borders of the boxes our dads or husbands draw for us."

Every Saudi woman is bound to have a male guardian, usually a father or husband, but sometimes a brother or a son. Other male relatives also have authority over women's fates, although to a lesser extent. The guardian makes crucial life decisions for his charge: he has the power to prohibit her from traveling abroad, working, or marrying. The woman should ask her guardian for advice on getting proper health care as well.

Women's rights activists have repeatedly urged the Saudi authorities to change the situation, and in 2009 and 2013, Saudi Arabia did adopt steps to ease the control of the guardians. In particular, no permission is now needed for Saudi women to work, and a law was passed criminalizing domestic abuse.
Read More...
Mr. Potato

Pokémon chaos: Child hit by a motorbike, others rescued from a cave as download frenzy crashes game servers

Alexander Robertston
Daily Mail
Fri, 15 Jul 2016 17:50 UTC
pokeman mine rescue
A specialist mine rescue team (pictured) were forced to save a group of teenagers who got lost in a cave - while looking for Pokemon
A teenager thought to have been playing new rave game Pokemon Go was hit by a motorcycle while crossing the road.

The boy, in his mid-teens, was struck by the bike in a busy road after walking out between two buses.

Officers from the Met Police and paramedics from the London Ambulance service were called to Bexleyheath at 3.35pm.

The young boy suffered minor injuries and was taken to a south London hospital.

The incident comes after a specialist mine rescue team were forced to save a group of teenagers who got lost in a cave - while looking for Pokemon.

The four teens headed into the underground network of tunnels to play the mobile phone game that has recently taken the world by storm.

But the kids lost their way in the caves below Hawthorn in Wiltshire and were forced to wander around until they found enough mobile phone signal to call 999.

Comment: The 'Pokémon Go' app is doing the CIA's dirty work

Read More...
Yoda

10 key ways to short circuit the Matrix

John W. Whitehead
Waking Times
Thu, 14 Jul 2016 00:00 UTC
system failure

"Until they become conscious, they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled, they cannot become conscious." - George Orwell
The more things change, the more they stay the same.

It's a shell game intended to keep us focused on and distracted by all of the politically expedient things that are being said—about militarized police, surveillance, and government corruption—while the government continues to frogmarch us down the road toward outright tyranny.

Unarmed citizens are still getting shot by militarized police trained to view them as the enemy and treated as if we have no rights. Despite President Obama's warning that the nation needs to do some "soul searching" about issues such as race, poverty and the strained relationship between law enforcement and the minority communities they serve, police killings and racial tensions are at an all-time high.

Americans' private communications and data are still being sucked up by government spy agencies. The USA Freedom Act was just a placebo pill intended to make us feel better without bringing about any real change. As Bill Blunden, a cybersecurity researcher and surveillance critic, points out, "The theater we've just witnessed allows decision makers to boast to their constituents about reforming mass surveillance while spies understand that what's actually transpired is hardly major change."

Comment: The Matrix metaphor is very apt but runs far deeper than this article suggests. Read Laura Knight-Jadczyk's elucidating Wave Series to learn of the cosmic context that all of these developments are coming out of - and fit within.

red pill


Read More...
Stock Down

Despicable: Canadian priest gambled away $400,000 of refugee aid


RT
Sun, 17 Jul 2016 09:20 UTC
Amer Saka catholic priest
© Gambling Herald / YouTubeAmer Saka (Left)
A priest in London, Canada, has been charged with fraud for allegedly stealing and gambling away some US$400,000 (C$500,000) collected by his parish for refugee aid.

Amer Saka, a 51 year old clergyman of St. Joseph Chaldean Catholic Church, an Eastern Syriac branch of the Catholic Church, had ostensibly collected the money from some 20 donors as part of a sponsorship program that helps refugees fleeing war-torn Middle Eastern countries move to Canada, local media reported.

The fraud surfaced when Saka allegedly called his local Bishop, Emanuel Shaleta, head of the Chaldean Catholic church in Canada, and confessed to taking the money for himself and losing it all at a casino. He then turned himself in to police, who launched an investigation, while church authorities suspended him from his duties.

Comment: How many people could have been helped with the money that this supposed man of service carelessly squandered? How many people will suffer and die because of his actions?

Read More...
Dollars

Nice attacker: Texted someone about weapons, emptied bank account, scoped out Nice for 2-3 days


RT
Sun, 17 Jul 2016 20:14 UTC
bouhlel
© Eric Gaillard / ReutersThe name Mohamed Lahoualej Bouhlel is seen on a plate outside the building where he lived in Nice, France, July 17, 2016
Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, the driver of the truck that killed at least 84 people in Nice on Thursday, had planned the attack and was busy preparing for it, local media report citing investigators.

Police have inspected the attacker's phone, found in his truck when they searched through it. They discovered several text messages Bouhlel apparently wrote to his accomplice, just ahead of the tragedy. One message reads "I have the equipment."

Bouhlel there might have been referring to the truck he rented, or to the dummy weapons, a deactivated grenade and 7.65mm caliber pistol with which he shot at police during the attack before being shot himself. France-TV reports Bouhlel procured the weapon from two Albanians, who are among 6 people currently in custody in connection with the case. Bouhlel 's ex-wife, previously also detained, has been released on Sunday, AFP reports.


Comment: Caution: 'accomplices' does not necessarily imply any ties to an organized "Islamic terror cell". In this case, it can simply mean the people he got the weapons from, or someone who helped him rent the truck. They need not have even known he was planning something of this sort.

Read More...
Pistol

Police describe deadly shooting at Florida hospital as 'extremely random'

J.D. Gallop and Chris Bonanno
FLORIDA TODAY
Sun, 17 Jul 2016 13:11 UTC
titusville florida hospital shooting
© Craig Rubadoux / FLORIDA TODAYTwo people were killed in a shooting at Parrish Medical Center in Titusville early Sunday.
A 29-year-old Titusville man was taken into custody as investigators search for a motive in what Brevard County Sheriff Wayne Ivey says was an "extremely random" shooting inside Parrish Medical Center in Titusville that claimed the lives of an employee and a patient.

The suspected gunman was identified as David Owens, 29, of Titusville. He was booked into the Brevard County Jail Complex about 10 a.m. Sunday and charged with two counts of first-degree premeditated murder and is being held on a no bond status.

The victims were named as 88-year-old Cynthia Zingsheim, who was a patient at the hospital, and 36-year-old employee Carrie Rouzer. Both were shot in a room on the third floor, where the 210-bed hospital's birthing suites are also located.

Comment: Is there "something in the air" recently that's causing people to lose any remaining semblances of sanity that they had left?

Read More...
Pistol

Alleged rape suspect takes four hostages in Baltimore Burger King

Colin Campbell
The Baltimore Sun
Sun, 17 Jul 2016 14:31 UTC
cop cars baltimore intersection hostage situation burger king
© Courtesy @charmcitylwyBaltimore police responded to a possible barricade situation at Washington and Monroe in Southwest Baltimore.
An armed man suspected in a recent rape took four people hostage — including a 7-year-old girl — inside a Baltimore Burger King after evading police Sunday, authorities said.

Officers tried to stop the suspect, whom police did not name, to serve him an arrest warrant on the northwest side of the city about 11 a.m., when he sped off and led police on a chase to Washington Boulevard and South Monroe Street near Carroll Park, police said.

The man crashed into another car at the intersection about 11:30 a.m. and ran inside the fast food restaurant, where he barricaded himself and the hostages, police said.
Read More...
Christmas Tree

800,000 people in India attempt to plant 50 million trees to break Guinness World record

Katie Pohlman
Eco Watch
Tue, 12 Jul 2016 01:54 UTC
Planting trees in India
More than 800,000 people turned out Monday in India to plant trees in hopes of breaking a world record.

Uttar Pradesh officials distributed 50 million tree saplings across the state to help India increase its forest cover and to break the Guinness World record for the number of trees planted in 24 hours—which was set by Pakistan in 2013 with 847,275 trees—the AP reported. Students, lawmakers, government officials and others headed out to plant trees at designated spots along roads, rail tracks and in forested lands.

Comment: See also: Tree-mendous health benefit of trees
  • Lone Indian man creates lush new forest ecosystem planting 1,360 acre forest


Read More...
Pistol

Baton Rouge: 3 officers shot dead, 4 others injured

Bart Jansen
USA Today
Sun, 17 Jul 2016 16:17 UTC
baton rouge shooting
© Mike Kunzelman, APAuthorities talk to the driver of a car near an area where several officers were shot while on duty less than a mile from police headquarters on July 17, 2016.
Three police officers have been shot dead in Baton Rouge, La., and others may have been wounded, authorities said Sunday.

The three officers were shot near the department headquarters, Baton Route Mayor Kip Holden told MSNBC. At least four others were injured in the shooting, he said.

"They are investigating," he said. "Right now we are trying to get our arms around everything."

Two Baton Rouge police officers and one East Baton Rouge sheriff's deputy are dead, according to WBRZ-TV's Michael Vinsanau.

The gunman was shot, a Louisiana State Police spokesman said, but his condition was not immediately clear.
Read More...
Water

As punishment, parents leave 3 children under age 7 in California desert without water, shoes

Colin Atagi and Denise Goolsby
The Desert Sun
Thu, 14 Jul 2016 16:03 UTC
29 Palms desert
© Denise Goolsby/The Desert SunAuthorities found three children wandering this Twentynine Palms desert without shoes or water Wednesday. They say the children were being punished by their mother and her boyfriend.
A mother and her boyfriend were arrested after they punished her three young children by leaving them in the desert in Twentynine Palms in temperatures just shy of 100 degrees on Wednesday, sheriff's officials said.

The children -- a 7-year-old girl, 6-year-old boy and a 5-year-old boy -- were discovered about 11:20 a.m. near the 74-000 block of Samarkand Drive, according to the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department. Their parents were "down the road from the children," sheriff's spokeswoman Cynthia Bachman said.

Officials haven't determined why the children were being punished, but they did not need medical treatment after they were found.

They had been in the desert for about 45 minutes without any shoes or water before a local resident alerted authorities. At the time, temperatures were about 95-100 degrees, according to the National Weather Service.

"The temperature was going up over the course of that hour," said Todd Lericos, a meteorologist. Temperatures topped off at 104 degrees and there was no wind to help cool the area, he said.
Read More...