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Red Cross: Humanitarians can't fix Yemen without a political solution to armed conflict


RT
Thu, 06 Dec 2018 14:40 UTC
A boy stands on the rubble of a house in the city of Saada, Yemen
© Reuters / Naif Rahma
Rubble of a house in the city of Saada, Yemen.
Yemen's disastrous humanitarian situation cannot be fixed by aid organizations as long as there is no political solution for the armed conflict there, the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross told RT.

Speaking during a visit to Moscow, Peter Maurer said he and other people providing relief for those living in conflict zones are hopeful that this week's negotiations in Sweden would bring progress in curbing violence in the Arab country.

"What is certainly true is that the humanitarians on their own can't fix the situation in which Yemen is in today, this is one of the most dire humanitarian situation we have seen, people have been dying not only from the direct attacks, but also from the destruction of the infrastructure, of hospitals, of water systems," he said. "This situation can only be fixed if a political solution is found. There is a slight light at the end of the tunnel with peace talks going on in Sweden."

Comment: There is now at least some hope for a political solution as representatives from the Yemeni government and Houthi rebels are meeting in Sweden to attend UN-sponsored negotiations aimed at ending the war. Mohammed Abdul-Salam, spokesman and chief negotiator for the Ansarullah movement, wrote on his official Twitter page that the Houthis "will spare no effort to make a success of the talks to restore peace and end the aggression." Martin Griffiths, the UN special envoy for Yemen said on Thursday in opening remarks at the talks that 'Both parties have called for a de-escalation, which is an important backdrop to these talks. This is a show of serious intent.'

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Attention

More than 7-in-10 California immigrant households receive taxpayer-funded welfare

John Binder
Breitbart
Tue, 04 Dec 2018 00:00 UTC
US Customs and Border Patrol
More than 7-in-10 households headed by immigrants in the state of California are on taxpayer-funded welfare, a new study reveals.

The latest Census Bureau data analyzed by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) finds that about 72 percent of households headed by noncitizens and immigrants use one or more forms of taxpayer-funded welfare programs in California - the number one immigrant-receiving state in the U.S.

Meanwhile, only about 35 percent of households headed by native-born Americans use welfare in California.

All four states with the largest foreign-born populations, including California, have extremely high use of welfare by immigrant households. In Texas, for example, nearly 70 percent of households headed by immigrants use taxpayer-funded welfare. Meanwhile, only about 35 percent of native-born households in Texas are on welfare.
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Heart - Black

Chinese mum fakes son's kidnapping to test husband's love

Laurie Chen
South China Morning Post
Wed, 05 Dec 2018 16:03 UTC
Chinese man missing son
© Weibo
A Chinese woman has been arrested for faking the kidnapping of her son, to test her husband’s love, according to police.
Police have accused the mother of an 11-year-old boy who went missing in eastern China for more than five days of staging a hoax after the child was found at a relative's house.

The boy, surnamed Huang, was found safe and well late on Tuesday evening, but his disappearance was a deliberately created false alarm, according to a statement on Wednesday from police in Yueqing, Zhejiang province.

The boy's mother, a 33-year-old woman surnamed Chen, has been detained on suspicion of "creating and deliberately spreading false information", according to police.

The woman, who had been in an argument with her husband, had "deliberately planned and created this false alarm" as a way of testing whether her husband really cared about her and her son, police said.
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Holly

Christmas is canceled? Swedish newspaper blasted for renaming the traditional holiday 'winter celebrations'


RT
Thu, 06 Dec 2018 14:35 UTC
Santa
© Global Look Press/ Egon Bömsch
A Swedish newspaper has come under fire after it stopped short of publishing a headline with the word Christmas. It instead referred to the much-revered holiday season as "winter celebrations."

Sydsvenskan, a regional daily headquartered in Skåne County, published an article on how Christmas celebrations are being moved from Gustaf Adolf Square to the "safer" one at Stortorget, as part of counter-terrorism measures.

Stockholm was the scene of a deadly terrorist attack on April 7 last year, when a truck ploughed into a crowd of pedestrians, killing five and injuring many more.

Police reported that the perpetrator had expressed sympathy with extremist groups, including Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS).

Comment: See also:

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Christmas Tree

Elementary school principal in Nebraska tried to ban slew of Christmas-themed items

Tré Goins-Phillips
Faithwire
Thu, 06 Dec 2018 15:44 UTC
candy canes
© Joanna Kosinska/Unsplash

An elementary school in Nebraska has banned a long list of Christmas-themed items in hopes of being "inclusive and culturally sensitive to all of our students," the principal said.

According to a report from Liberty Counsel, a religious liberty law firm, principal Jennifer Sinclair has banned an extensive list of items from Manchester Elementary School of Elkhorn Public Schools.
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Arrow Down

What America is doing to its young people is appalling

James Ostrowski
LewRockwell.com
Mon, 03 Dec 2018 20:58 UTC
american flag fence
Critics are perhaps too quick to judge America's young people, citing declining SAT scores, obesity, drug overdoses, addiction to smart phones, bizarre alterations of personal appearance and high rates of (alleged) mental illness. It's just too easy to be annoyed at how some of the cashiers at the local grocery store seem unable to carry on a conversation or have chosen to mutilate their faces with pieces of metal. We are perhaps too quick to condemn the crazed behavior of young protesters in recent years without fully considering what our government, society and culture have done to these poor souls.

Let's begin at the beginning. Forty percent of Americans are now born out of wedlock. Single parent families are associated with a long list of social maladies:
"Children who grow up with only one of their biological parents (nearly always the mother) are disadvantaged across a broad array of outcomes. . . . they are twice as likely to drop out of high school, 2.5 times as likely to become teen mothers, and 1.4 times as likely to be idle - out of school and out of work - as children who grow up with both parents. Children in one-parent families also have lower grade point averages, lower college aspirations, and poorer attendance records. As adults, they have higher rates of divorce. These patterns persist even after adjusting for differences in race, parents' education, number of siblings, and residential location." Sara McLanahan, "The Consequences of Single Motherhood," American Prospect (Summer 1994).

Comment: See also:

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Cell Phone

New York City wants to make it illegal to send a sexy pic without affirmative consent

Elizabeth Nolan Brown
Reason
Wed, 05 Dec 2018 15:08 UTC
statue of David
It's illegal to flash your genitals at strangers in public, but not to send unsolicited nudes via text, app, email, or social media. This is a situation the New York City Council seeks to rectify. To that end, a bill introduced last week by Councilman Joseph Borelli-which Wired has dubbed "NYC's Anti-Airdrop Dick Pic Law"-would prohibit "unsolicited disclosures of intimate images."

Under Borrelli's measure, it would be a misdemeanor offense "to send an unsolicited sexually explicit video or image to another person with intent to harass, annoy, or alarm such other person," punishable by up to a year in jail or a $1,000 fine. Sexually explicit means anything showing "genitals, pubic area or anus of any person."
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Heart - Black

Mother and children left homeless after police destroy house looking for non-existent suspect

Matt Agorist
The Free Thought Project
Wed, 05 Dec 2018 14:48 UTC
home destroyed by police
© Nate Manley | mlive.com
If police think there is a bad guy in your home, they can and smash out windows, kick in doors, and even rip walls completely off. Even when this alleged bad guy is not in the home, police can and will destroy it anyway. Crystal Thomas just learned this fact the hard way-and just before Christmas, she is now homeless.

Last Friday, police executed a search warrant at Thomas' home looking for her 16-year-old son who was suspected of robbing a store. The execution of the search warrant consisted of smashing in all the windows, tearing off doors, kicking in window units, ripping walls off, and destroying furniture. Cops even smashed the basketball goal outside the home-just for good measure.
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Attention

'Dresses & braids?' Outrage as German manual shows how to identify 'far-right' children in kindergartens


RT
Thu, 06 Dec 2018 11:53 UTC
Kindergarten class
A 60-page advice brochure for German kindergartens instructs teachers on how to identify and deal with children from 'far-right' families. Critics say it encourages spying and equates wearing braids and dresses with nationalism.

The manual, titled 'Inequality and Early Education,' was published by an anti-racist NGO, Amadeu Antonio Foundation. It was co-funded by the Federal Ministry of Family Affairs.

The guide is designed to help the kindergarten staff to detect and deal with children from far-right families in the wake of the "significant increase in the right-wing populist movements" in Germany, the Federal Minister of Family Affairs, Franziska Giffey wrote in the brochure's introduction.

The brochure suggests that the staff should be alerted of far-right views exhibited by the children and their parents. It offers advice on how to act in various scenarios. For example, what to do if a child draws swastikas in kindergarten and says it is "a good thing" at home.
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Handcuffs

Eurojust coordinate arrest of 84 across Europe in crackdown on Italian mob

Mike Corder
AP
Thu, 06 Dec 2018 11:13 UTC
raid mafia
© Christoph Reichwein/dpa via AP
Masked police stand in an ice parlor in Duisburg, western Germany, Wednesday, Dec. 5, 2018 as authorities conduct coordinated raids in Germany, Italy, Belgium and the Netherlands in a crackdown on the Italian mafia.
In an investigation that underscored an Italian crime syndicate's role as a leading player in international cocaine trafficking, police in four countries arrested at least 84 suspected mobsters Wednesday in a series of carefully coordinated raids.

Those detained allegedly work for the Italian 'ndrangheta criminal network that traffics in cocaine on a global scale.

"It's almost a cliche, but the operation carried out today confirms again the great danger of the 'ndrangheta, not just in drug trafficking, where it's the undisputed leader, but (also) in the financial sphere," said Francesco Ratta, a top police official in the southern Italian region of Calabria. "It's an evolved 'ndrangheta, that we can say knows no borders ... It's an 'ndrangheta that day by day changes its skin ... but still keeps ties" to its home base in Calabria.

European officials announced the arrests at the Hague headquarters of Eurojust, the European Union prosecutors agency set up to bolster the fight against cross-border crime in the 28-nation bloc. Eurojust and EU police agency Europol coordinated the raids.

"Today we send a clear message to organized crime groups across Europe," said Filippo Spiezia, vice president of Eurojust, the EU prosecution agency that coordinated the raids. "They are not the only ones able to operate across borders; so are Europe's judiciary and law enforcement communities."

Comment: Arrests on mobsters appears to be on the rise, but it seems some of the most powerful criminal networks, such as the banking institutions, likely involved in these crimes, and worse, are not currently considered targets: Whistleblower exposes biggest money laundering scandal in European history involving Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan and Danske Bank

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