Society's ChildS


Attention

Hong Kong police attacked by club-wielding mob as protests turn violent

HONG KONG PROTEST
© Reuters/Thomas PeterAnti-extradition bill protesters face police and clash in Tsuen Wan in Hong Kong
Protesters used clubs and projectiles to attack police on the streets of Hong Kong, a newly posted video shows, contradicting the western narrative which had painted the anti-China demonstrators as noble victims.

Footage shows a group of armed protesters -many equipped with helmets and gas masks- rushing at riot police with baseball bats, sticks, rocks, metal rods and other crude weapons.

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Russian Flag

Russia to build €2bn bridge as part of route linking Europe & Western China

bridge
Authorities in Russia's Samara Region are ready to begin construction of a 4km-long (2.5 miles) bridge across the Volga; it is the first part of an ambitious international traffic corridor linking Europe with Western China.

The bridge will cost 120.8 billion rubles (€1.6 billion or $1.8 billion), according to the latest version of the construction agreement.

Half of that sum will be allocated as a capital grant from the regional budget, the rest of the financing will be raised by the investor, Obkhod Togliatti (Togliatti bypass). The bridge will be part of the new highway linking Moscow and Kazan, the capital of Russia's Tatarstan republic.

The new road will greatly reduce travel time from Moscow to Kazan, as well as to another large city in Central Russia - Samara - from the current 16 to 8 hours, project papers state.

Eye 1

FATCA: IRS using UK banks to hound non-residents for revenue, threaten to freeze accounts

IRS US
© AP Photo/ J. David Ake
With the exception of Eritrea, the US is the only country in the world that taxes non-resident citizens on their global income, as foreign financial firms with US operations are all obligated to report information pertaining to US taxpayers to the Internal Revenue Service.

Tens of thousands of British citizens born in the US who left when only a few months or years old are facing the risk of their bank accounts in the United Kingdom being frozen over pressure by American tax authorities on the country's banks, writes The Guardian.

An increasing number of British citizens who never worked in the US are being chased down by banks that seek to obtain their American tax identification numbers under threat of having their assets frozen.

Comment: As with all tax rules, it's the general public, who don't have the resources to tackle the unjust laws and its enforcers, who lose out. Further, if the British government really worked for its citizens it would not have signed up to FATCA nor would it comply:


Attention

LAPD officer kills mentally ill man and shoots his parents inside a local Costco

Paola French
© KABCPaola French describes the June 14, 2019, shooting at a Costco in Corona, California, that killed her son, 32-year-old Kenneth French.
The parents of a mentally ill man who was killed by an off-duty LAPD officer inside a Southern California Costco described the sequence of events that led to all three of them being shot.

On June 14, Paola and Russell French were making a routine shopping trip at the Costco in Corona, California, with their son, 32-year-old Kenneth French, to prepare for Father's Day, their attorney, Dale Galipo, told reporters at a news conference Monday.

The family had been inside the store for 30 to 40 minutes when they stopped at a stand where a Costco employee was handing out samples of sausages, Galipo said.

Salvador Sanchez of the LAPD's Southwest Division was also at the stand holding his young son, Galipo said, adding that what sparked the ensuing altercation is unclear.

Paola French described what happened next as her son pushing or shoving the officer, while other witnesses described it as a punch or a strike, Galipo said.

Fire

Why everything they're saying about the Amazon fires is wrong

celebs amazon fires
© WikipediaThe dramatic photos shared by celebrities of the fires in Brazil weren't what they appeared to be.
The increase in fires burning in Brazil set off a storm of international outrage last week. Celebrities, environmentalists, and political leaders blame Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, for destroying the world's largest rainforest, the Amazon, which they say is the "lungs of the world."

Singers and actors including Madonna and Jaden Smith shared photos on social media that were seen by tens of millions of people. "The lungs of the Earth are in flames," said actor Leonardo DiCaprio. "The Amazon Rainforest produces more than 20% of the world's oxygen," tweeted soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo. "The Amazon rain forest — the lungs which produce 20% of our planet's oxygen — is on fire," tweeted French President Emanuel Macron.

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Control Panel

Tesla on autopilot "suddenly accelerates", smashes into power pole, sparks a fire, & causes thousands to lose power

tesla autopilot accident
With every passing Tesla Autopilot accident that we hear about, more and more people are narrowly dodging death.

This seems to be the case yet again after an NBC Bay Area report revealed that a Tesla on Autopilot had "suddenly accelerated", according to a witness, and smashed into a power pole, sparking a fire and causing thousands to lose power.

A witness who was behind the driver, Mike Evon, said the car "suddenly started to accelerate and then lost control".

Comment: Autopilot crashing cars, hackers able to remotely control them, spontaneously bursting into flames - it seems there's no end in sight to the number of problems with Teslas. At this point, you'd either have to be crazy or have a death wish to drive one of these things.

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Eye 1

New Jersey cops turn citizens' phones into surveillance devices

surveillance police video
© Global Look / Mohssen Assanimoghaddam
A New Jersey police department has unveiled technology that allows 911 operators to stream video from callers' smartphones. Sounds like a good idea, at first - but where does the surveillance stop?

Gloucester Township Police's new 911eye emergency dispatch system lets emergency service operators see video live-streamed from a caller's phone, giving first responders an idea of what they're getting into before anyone is sent to the scene. For now, the caller has to activate the livestream with a link sent by the 911 dispatcher, which allows operators to use the phone's camera and microphone. But this is the first step down a very slippery slope.

Attention

BC court ruling against father in child hormone treatment case sets dangerous precedent

lady justice
Lawyer John Carpay is president of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF.ca) which has applied to intervene before the BC Court of Appeal in the case of AB v. CD and EF.
The case of AB v. CD and EF is now before the British Columbia Court of Appeal.

A court order prohibits the publication of the names of the born-female child ("AB"), the child's father ("CD"), the child's mother ("EF") and the medical professionals involved in this case.

The court's order also prohibits using biologically accurate pronouns to refer to this born-female child.

The story of AB

The father and mother divorced about four years ago. Since that time, their female-born child was frequently in trouble in school, seeing school counsellors on a regular basis.

With the support and affirmation of school counsellors, the female-born child began to transition to a male identity, including taking on a male name.

This was kept a secret from the father, even though custody is legally shared between him and his ex-wife, and despite his legal right to know all significant happenings and developments pertaining to his own child.

The father only found out after seeing his child in a school yearbook, dressed up as a boy with a new male name below the picture.

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Broom

South American political shockwaves bring the New Silk Road into the Americas while the neo-liberal order disintegrates

silk road world wide
The World Land-Bridge and Maritime Silk Road.
Over the past several years Latin America has become a strategic battleground which involves much more than merely "geopolitical power plays" between the USA vs China as many commentators are asserting. Of course this is not to say that there are no geopolitical battles occurring. The entire western sponsored regime change operation in Venezuela couldn't be understood unless one realized that China and Russia see Venezuela as a strategic ally in the Americas and a future zone for Belt and Road projects which are sweeping across the world... but something more is happening.

Over the past three years, over 17 Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) nations have signed onto the new operating framework of the Belt and Road Initiative which extends far beyond the limited China-to-Europe corridor which many presumed it to be when it was announced in 2013. With its focus on long term planning and interconnectivity, China is already number one in vital infrastructure investments globally and while not number one in overall trade in the Americas, has now produced over six times more investment into Latin American energy infrastructure than the World Bank.

Marijuana

Dispute over smokable hemp puts North Carolina's farm bill in limbo

Hemp
© TinaKru from Pixabay
North Carolina's farm bill has passed the House, but it now may be frozen in the Senate.

Senate Bill 315, "North Carolina Farm Act of 2019," was approved Wednesday, Aug. 21, by a 63-48 vote, but only after House members revised the omnibus legislation to outlaw the sale and use of dried, smokable hemp flowers May 1, 2020.

The bill heads to the Senate for concurrence, where its primary sponsor, Sen. Brent Jackson, R-Sampson, says he'll recommend his colleagues give it a red light due to "a few glaring flaws."

"The Senate version had his full support, but the changes made in the House are not acceptable," Christopher Stock, a spokesman for Jackson, told Carolina Journal in an email. "This is a Farm Act and in its current form it stands to harm agriculture in North Carolina. That just doesn't make sense."

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