Society's ChildS


People

Widespread protests and strikes hit France over unpopular labor reforms


Sputnik
Thu, 31 Mar 2016 12:12 UTC
France protests
© REUTERS/ Jean-Paul Pelissier
Massive strikes and protests over labor reforms are taking place across France on Thursday, with public transport disruptions and many schools, as well as popular tourist attractions such as the Eiffel Tower, remaining closed, local media reported.

The protests are against a bill that would relax France's labor laws, permitting employees to work much more than the current statutory 35-hour week, imposing a cap on damages in cases of unfair dismissal as well as removing barriers to firing employees on economic grounds.
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People

Polls show majority of Europeans want a say in who joins the EU


Sputnik
Thu, 31 Mar 2016 10:52 UTC
European Union flag
© AP Photo/ Yorgos Karahalis

Comment: Europeans hopefully remember just how much respect the EU's technocrats have for referendums. Remember how Germany crushed Greece, or how UK's ruling elites rigged the Scottish referendum? The elite have already responded to the fact that the Dutch plan to vote 'no' on Ukraine's EU membership by having the Hague "reconsider" its position. While Europeans want democracy, remember that it's hypocrisy and tyranny that rule the day.


According to Sputnik.Polls, the majority of Italians (66%), Germans (63%) and the French (63%) want to be involved in decisions regarding the conclusion of EU association agreements* with other countries through national referendums.

The survey was conducted by the opinion poll companies Populus and Ifop for Sputnik News Agency and Radio.

A referendum on the EU-Ukraine association agreement will take place in the Netherlands on April 6.

According to Sputnik.Polls, Italians are most enthusiastic about holding referendums on such deals with other countries. Sixty-six percent of Italians would like to hold a referendum before concluding an association agreement with any new country.
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Black Magic

Creepiest airport in the world - Denver International Airport

Eli Orzessek
New Zealand Herald
Thu, 31 Mar 2016 01:56 UTC
Blue Mustang
© Eric Golub/FlickrAn ominous bucking horse greets visitors to Denver International Airport.
With apocalyptic murals, a terrifying giant horse statue and curiously laid-out runways, Denver International Airport has been the subject of many conspiracy theories since it opened in 1995.

Located 25 miles outside of Denver, the airport is enormous - it's twice the size of Manhattan and reportedly went $2 billion over budget.
Gargoyle
© K W Reinsch/FlickrA gargoyle in a suitcase at Denver International Airport.
Before its construction, Denver already had an airport, Stapleton, which added fuel to beliefs that it was constructed to hide a large underground bunker, presumably reserved for members of the Illuminati.
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Pistol

Israeli medic: "He's not dead, shoot him in the head"


IMEMC News & Agencies
Mon, 28 Mar 2016 10:17 UTC
Psychopathic Israeli medic
After Thursday's execution of a wounded young Palestinian man and his friend (who bled to death), was captured on tape, many details started emerging, including the involvement of an Israeli military medic in the crime.

In one of the videos that captured this extrajudicial assassination of the already seriously wounded, completely incapacitated Palestinian, the sound of an Israeli colonialist settler, who is also a medic and a cameraman, could be heard saying, "He is not dead... shoot him in the head."

The second video shows an Israeli soldier executing the wounded Palestinian, Abdul-Fattah Sharif, with a gunshot to the head, after conspiring with an Israeli colonialist settler to drive his van forward to block surveillance cameras and prevent onlookers from documenting the crime. The soldiers and settler did not see the Palestinian who was filming from an upstairs window.

The Israeli medics did not attempt any first aid on the two Palestinians, leaving one of them to bleed to death and executing the other.

Issa Amro, the coordinator of the Youth against Settlements Coalition, said what happened "is clear proof that the Israeli soldiers and the medics conspire and cooperate in executing the Palestinians."
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Bad Guys

Man killed by Arizona cop was obviously compliant and offered no resistance

Andy Cush
Gawker
Thu, 31 Mar 2016 00:00 UTC
daniel shaver
Daniel Shaver, 26, a traveling businessman and father-of-two from Granbury, Texas, was fatally shot by a police officer on January 18 inside the La Quinta Inn in Mesa, Arizona. He is pictured here with his daughters Natalie, 6, and Emery, 3
Moments before a Mesa, Arizona, police officer killed Daniel Shaver with five shots from an AR-15, Shaver was on all fours, pleading with officers not to shoot him, according to a newly released police report from the incident.

Shaver, a twenty-six-year-old from Texas, was killed on January 18. Philip Brailsford, the two-year Mesa Police Department officer who allegedly killed him, was fired from the department and charged with second-degree murder.

Shaver was staying at a Mesa La Quinta Inn on a work-related trip when he was killed, according to a local ABC affiliate. The police report (viewable in full here) alleges that officers received a call about a man pointing a rifle out Shaver's fifth-floor hotel window.

Comment: The knee-jerk reactions of cops who are killing people and their pets has become frighteningly common in the US police state. The only thing uncommon about this tragic incident is that the officer responsible is actually being charged with murder - most of them walk away with barely a hand-slap.

Sott Exclusive: Police are the new gestapo, able to brutalize, steal and murder on a whim, and get away with it

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Arrow Up

California's plan to raise minimum wage to $15 clears key hurdle

Sharon Bernstein
Yahoo News
Thu, 31 Mar 2016 00:29 UTC
CA minimum wage
© REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson/FilesFast-food workers and their supporters join a nationwide protest for higher wages and union rights in Los Angeles, California, United States, in this file photo taken November 10, 2015.
A plan to raise California's minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2022 cleared its first legislative hurdle on Wednesday, putting the state on track to become the first in the nation to commit to such a large pay hike for the working poor.

The measure, incorporating a deal Governor Jerry Brown reached with labor leaders and fellow Democrats in the Legislature, was approved on a party-line vote of 12-7 by the Assembly Appropriations Committee, where a previous version of the bill had stalled last summer.

One Democrat, Tom Daly, joined six Republicans in opposing the measure, which now advances to the full Assembly for action as early as this week. It would then return to the Senate for a final vote.

If enacted, the bill would put California, home to one of the world's biggest economies, in the vanguard of a growing number of U.S. states and cities that have moved in recent years to surpass the federal minimum wage, which has remained at $7.25 an hour since 2009.
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Passport

Sex offenders file lawsuit against carrying unique passports


RT
Wed, 30 Mar 2016 17:29 UTC
creepy man
Sex offenders required by a new federal law to carry marked passports are hoping a Wednesday court hearing will suspend the regulation. The law, signed by President Barack Obama last month, is a violation of their constitutional rights, they say.

A federal judge in Oakland, California could potentially block the International Megan's Law to Prevent Demand for Child Sex Trafficking as requested by California Reform Sex Offender Laws, a civil rights group. Just six weeks old, the law requires the State Department to mark the passports of certain sex offenders.

The plaintiffs claim that the law violates the US Constitution's First Amendment, forcing them to divulge information that will "publicly stigmatize a disfavored minority group using a document foundational to citizenship," the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit also alleges that because passports are a vital form of identification abroad, a unique symbol that identifies sex offenders could "invite significant risk of harm to themselves, their families, and other with whom they may be traveling."


Comment: It could also serve as a warning that could prevent predation.


The intention of International Megan's Law is to prevent child trafficking and exploitation abroad, an expansion of Megan's Law, a law passed by Congress in 1996 to mandate authorities publicly disclose information about convicted sex offenders. The new law was sponsored by Rep. Chris Smith (R-New Jersey) after a meeting with a delegation of Thai officials about human trafficking, the Wall Street Journal reported.
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Stock Down

Saudi Arabia has lost oil market shares in key countries over the past three years


RT
Tue, 29 Mar 2016 17:26 UTC
Arab Gulf man sitting
© Ali Jarekji / ReutersAn Arab Gulf man rests on a main street in Riyadh
The world's largest crude exporter, Saudi Arabia has lost its leading position in nine of the 15 top markets in the past three years reports the Financial Times citing data from energy consultancy group FGE.

According to the analysis, the kingdom lost ground in China, South Africa and the US between 2013 and 2015, despite the goal of maintaining its crude market share amid the oil glut.

"Saudi Arabia has had very difficult time selling oil in this environment," Citigroup analyst Ed Morse told the FT. "Its rivals are going into a very crowded market in a very aggressive way."

The country has also lost its market share in South Korea, Thailand, Taiwan and several western European countries, the FGE data showed.

Saudi Arabia's share of Chinese oil imports fell from more than 19 percent in 2013 to almost 15 percent in 2015, because of increased supplies from Russia.
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Arrow Down

Terminex fined $10 million for using nerve agent and poisoning US family


RT
Wed, 30 Mar 2016 17:10 UTC
US Virgin Islands
© luxuryretreats.com
The Justice Department has fined Terminix $10 million after the pest control company illegally used a nerve agent that sickened a Delaware family vacationing on the US Virgin Islands.

"Terminix companies knowingly failed to properly manage their pest control operations in the US Virgin Islands, allowing pesticides containing methyl bromide to be applied illegally and exposing a family of four to profoundly debilitating injuries," US Assistant Attorney General John C. Cruden said in a statement Tuesday, according to The Associated Press.

A criminal investigation began last year after a Delaware family vacationing in St. John in March 2015 was poisoned and suffered seizures. Employees of Terminix had used methyl bromide at a vacation unit below the one the family had rented.

Two teenagers were hospitalized in critical condition and have permanent neurological damage, while their parents also underwent treatment. A lawyer representing the family said that the brothers were barely able to move months later, trapped in bodies badly damaged by the nerve agent.

"Neurologically, it's like being in a torture chamber," attorney James Maron told CNN last year.
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Dollar

Ukraine blames 'Russian aggression' for skyrocketing inflation


RT
Wed, 30 Mar 2016 16:59 UTC
woman Ukraine supermarket
© Konstantin Chernichkin / ReutersA woman reads the label of a food product at a supermarket in Kiev.
The Ukrainian inflation rate over the last three years of 80 percent is "a result of aggression from Russia," according to Ukraine's Social Policy Minister Pavel Rozenko.

"There was a high inflation rate [in Ukraine - Ed.] of about 80 percent during 2013-2015, primarily due to the aggression [from Russia - Ed.] and the loss of industrial capacity," he said at a government meeting on Wednesday.

At the same time, the minister said Ukraine's government had managed "to fulfill only 13 percent of the country's social obligations". He, therefore, called for more minimum social standards in the 2017 draft budget to compensate the people for losses from inflation.

Russian officials have repeatedly refuted allegations of conducting any military operations in the Donbass area, calling the allegations "fake propaganda."
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