Society's ChildS


Stock Down

Ex-European Central Bank chief warns of another global financial crisis due to excessive debt levels


Sputnik
Tue, 04 Sep 2018 08:45 UTC
notes money juan euro
© AP Photo / Emrah Gurel
Europe's top central banker during the 2008 financial crisis outlined that the current premises could create the same meltdown as ten years ago.

Jean-Claude Trichet, who ran the European Central Bank between 2003 and 2011, told AFP in an interview that the amount of debt accumulated in the current financial market made the world's financial system as vulnerable as it was 10 years ago.

"The growth in debt, especially private debt, in advanced countries has slowed, but this slowdown has been offset by an acceleration of emerging country debt," said Trichet, noting that this situation could be even more devastating than the financial crisis of 2008.

He also outlined that there is now agreement that the excessive debt level in the advanced economies was a key factor that triggered a global crisis in 2007 and 2008, thus this is the vulnerability of the markets that could potentially trigger a new economic meltdown.

Comment: See also:The world's economic debt train has runaway and it spells disaster for everyone

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Russian Flag

America constantly portrays Russia as the enemy, but what do Russians do?

Seraphim Hanisch
The Duran
Mon, 03 Sep 2018 08:10 UTC
Russian people do not obsess about America at all now, nor did they while Russia was part of the Soviet Union.

Babushkas
Americans are immersed in a culture that is steeped with war dramas. If there is not a real war to depict, it is common to create a drama from a "what if?" style of fantasy. In that regard, American cinema is well-supplied with movies about Russia, the Soviet Union, the Cold War and possible alternate histories.

Do these titles look familiar?
  • The Hunt for Red October
  • Bridge of Spies
  • Thirteen Days
  • Rocky IV
  • Crimson Tide
  • The Day After
  • Red Dawn (1984)
  • WarGames
  • Rambo
  • Threads
  • Dr Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

Comment: See also:

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Dig

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham militants dig huge tunnel network, plan chemical weapons provocations in Idlib


Sputnik
Sun, 02 Sep 2018 08:45 UTC
Idlib militant in a tunnel
© Sputnik / Michail VoskresenskiySecrets of underground life and war inside the Syrian tunnels
Moscow previously informed the UN and submitted evidence about planned provocations in the province of Idlib using chemical weapons. According to the Russian foreign minister, militants are hoping to use such provocations to convince Western countries to launch a new round of airstrikes on Damascus' positions.

Sputnik Arabia's sources have reported that militants from the group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham are digging a tunnel network throughout the province as a part of their preparations for battle against the Syrian army. Locals told Sputnik that the group had forced thousands of captives to dig the tunnels both with and without special equipment. The sources also said that some of the tunnels were so wide that a car could drive through them.

Sources noted that the tunnels look very much like the ones that were previously found in Eastern Ghouta. Since many of the militants from Ghouta have relocated to Idlib, it is possible that those who constructed the tunnels there are now overseeing the same work in Idlib.

Comment: See also: 'In detail': Russia gives US intel on planned chemical weapons provocation in Syria

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Fire

At least 12 fire engines, 80 firefighters called to primary school fire in London


RT
Tue, 04 Sep 2018 08:15 UTC
Firefighters
At least 12 engines and around 80 firefighters have been called to a blaze at a primary school in London, the fire brigade said.

The incident took place at Hewett Road in the Dagenham area of East London, according to the statement.

"Around half of the single-storey building is currently alight," the firefighters said, adding that the cause of the blaze is unknown.
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Megaphone

White workers at South African energy plant plan strike over blacks-only share plan


RT
Mon, 03 Sep 2018 16:11 UTC
Sasol plant
© Siphiwe Sibeko / Reuters
South Africa's Solidarity trade union is set to stage a strike against a share ownership plan offered exclusively to black staff at oil and gas major Sasol. The union says the firm's white workers are facing racial exclusion.

"We intend to switch off a different section of Sasol each day by means of well-laid and strategic plans," the 6,300-person union said in a statement.

"We are getting overwhelming support from the community. We expect hundreds of people from the community to join the Sasol employees in a mass rally. There are even businesses who said they will close so that they will be able to participate."

Under the current legislation, South African businesses are mandated to meet quotas on black ownership, employment and acquisition. The measure was imposed by the country's government as part of a broader program aimed at countering decades of omission under apartheid.

"This will be the first time in the history of South Africa that white employees strike because of racial exclusion, 89 percent of Sasol workers in Sasolburg and Secunda voted in favor of industrial action," the statement reads.
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Quenelle

BDS protest over Northern Ireland vs Israel football match to be held at Belfast McDonald's

Gareth Cross
Belfast Telegraph
Mon, 03 Sep 2018 18:34 UTC
BDS Ireland MacDonalds
© Chris Ison/Press AssociationBDS Ireland are staging a protest at a McDonald's in west Belfast.
A group which advocates the removal of Israeli products from Ireland is holding a protest outside a west Belfast McDonald's against its sponsorship of the Irish Football Association (IFA).

BDS Ireland is hosting the protest to call on McDonald's to end sponsorship of the IFA unless the organisation cancels its upcoming friendly with Israel at Windsor Park on Tuesday, September 11.

The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement is a global campaign which promotes various boycotts against Israel due to its treatment of Palestine over disputed lands in the West Bank area.

The protest is taking place at the McDonald's in Kennedy Way, west Belfast on Tuesday from 7.30pm-8.30pm.
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Heart - Black

Outrage as Oklahoma cop who killed unarmed black man trains others to 'survive' stress


RT
Mon, 03 Sep 2018 13:35 UTC
Funeral
© Kurt Steiss / ReutersA portrait of Terence Crutcher at his funeral.
People are protesting over an Oklahoma police officer, who killed an unarmed black man, teaching officers how to cope with stress after 'critical incidents.' RT spoke to the victim's sister who said police should be 'ashamed.'

Betty Shelby, a deputy at the Rogers County Sheriff's Office, Oklahoma, believes her new class 'Surviving the Aftermath of a Critical Incident' will allow her to share the "skills" she used to "cope with stress" after fatally shooting an unarmed black motorist Terence Crutcher in Tulsa in 2016.

Shelby claimed she had fired at Crutcher after he refused to show his hands and reached into his pocket instead. The officer was eventually acquitted of manslaughter, but the victim's family and local activists are angry that she had not only kept her job within the law enforcement but is teaching others.
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Broom

Russia closes 93 prisons in 7 years due to optimization and leniency


RT
Mon, 03 Sep 2018 10:41 UTC
guard jail
© Vladimir Pesnya / SputnikAn employee at Pretrial Detention Center No. 2 (Butyrskaya remand prison) of the Federal Penitentiary Service Directorate for Moscow
A significant decrease in Russia's prison population has led to the closing of 93 prisons in the last seven years, Deputy Justice Minister Valery Maksimenko has announced. Changes in criminal law haved caused the transformation.

"Because of changes in the crime-related policy of the state, the number of inmates in various penal institutions in our country has dropped by more than 200,000 since the year 2000 and today it amounts to 484,000," Maksimenko told reporters on Monday.

He added that this allowed for the closure of 93 prisons over the past seven years, mostly in remote and hard-to reach regions, and to decrease the number of officers in the administration.

Comment: Meanwhile the US can't build prisons fast enough:

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Magic Wand

Trump impeachment dreams are just a liberal fantasy - Dems set the precedent with Bill and Monica

Marc Thiessen
Fox News
Mon, 03 Sep 2018 18:05 UTC
President Clinton poses with Monica Lewinsky in a Nov. 17, 1995 photo
© ReutersPresident Clinton poses with Monica Lewinsky in a Nov. 17, 1995 photo.
Michael Cohen's decision to plead guilty for making hush-money payments on Donald Trump's behalf has raised the prospect that if Democrats take control of Congress, they might try to impeach the president over a matter completely unrelated to a perceived criminal conspiracy with Russia. Good luck with that: Even if Democrats win back both the House and Senate, there is zero chance a two-thirds majority of senators will convict President Trump for paying off an adult-film star.

It would be the height of hypocrisy if Democrats tried to remove the president over allegations of illegality relating to extramarital affairs. During the Monica Lewinsky scandal, congressional Democrats told us the private sexual conduct of a president does not matter, and that lying under oath to cover up a "consensual relationship" is not an impeachable offense. Then-Rep. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., said President Bill Clinton's lies under oath about his sexual relationship with a White House intern might have been illegal, but declared the scandal "a tawdry but not impeachable affair" -- right before heading off to a fundraiser with Clinton. At the time, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., declared that the Starr investigation "vindicates President Clinton in the conduct of his public life because we're only left with this personal stuff" and that Founding Fathers "would say it was not for the investigation of a president's personal life that we risked our life, our liberty, and our sacred honor."

But now that a Republican president is accused of covering up an affair, suddenly Democrats are channeling their inner Kenneth W. Starr.
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Car Black

Woman carrying baby leads Texas police on a 100-mph highway chase


RT
Mon, 03 Sep 2018 16:55 UTC
Woman with baby
© Texas Department of Public Safety / YouTubeA woman flees from Texas police with a baby in tow.
Newly-released video shows a Texas woman leading police on a 100-mph chase and crashing her car, before attempting to flee on foot and hijack another vehicle, all while carrying a baby in a portable car seat.

In the video, shot in June but released recently by the Texas Department of Public Safety, the 29-year-old driver flees from police at high speed, reaching speeds of up to 100 miles per hour in her Mercedes-Benz SUV.

Weaving through traffic on a Texas highway, the woman narrowly misses several cars, and police roll out a spike strip to burst her tires. The spikes send the woman's SUV careening off the highway, through the dirt and onto an access road.
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