Society's ChildS


Health

Massive resurgence of cholera hits Yemen

Yemeni baby
© AP Photo / Hani Mohammed
According to reports coming out of war-torn Yemen, a minimum of one-third of cholera cases reported in a new outbreak of the deadly disease are children under the age of five.

Charity organization Oxfam has released information detailing that Yemen is at risk of a "massive resurgence" of cholera, as an estimated 195,000 cases have been currently reported for 2019 alone.

"Fears that the world's worst cholera outbreak could be set for a massive resurgence are growing," noted the Oxford Committee for Famine Relief (Oxfam) relief organization on Thursday.

Aid agencies and medical outreach groups are struggling to reach those in need, the relief agency reported, even as a Saudi-led military coalition stocked with the most recent US weapons continued operation against armed Houthi force in the country.

Comment: From 2017: Saudi Arabia donates $66.7 million to stop Yemen cholera crisis as it continues to bomb and blockade it


Pirates

ISIS claims responsibility for yesterday's attack on Afghan ministry

ISIS in Afghanistan
The Islamic State (IS) extremist group has claimed responsibility for an attack on an Afghan government building that killed at least seven people on April 20.

According to a statement published by the militant group's Amaq news agency on April 21, the assault on the Communications Ministry headquarters in downtown Kabul was carried out by four IS followers.

The Afghan affiliate of IS, sometimes known as Islamic State Khorasan, has been active in the war-torn country since 2015, fighting the Taliban as well as Afghan and U.S. forces.

Afghan officials said the attack on the ministry began with an explosion at the entrance of the building in a busy commercial area of the city, followed by gunfire.

Police said a bomber blew himself up outside the ministry, clearing the way for the other attackers to enter the building and the heavily guarded government compound in central Kabul.

Nasart Rahimi, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, said four civilians and three soldiers were killed during the attack, which lasted several hours. Eight civilians were wounded, he said.

Eye 1

Well done, Zuck: Facebook used distraction of Mueller report to sneakily change information on Instagram password scandal - 'thousands' of accounts became millions

instagram
© Energepic.com / Pexels
Facebook has been caught stealthily updating a weeks-old blog post regarding password security on Facebook and Instagram, on the same day the Mueller report was released.

The company admitted on March 21 that it had failed to securely store users' passwords, logging them and storing them unencrypted in plain text. The problem was initially detected as far back as January.

An hour before the Mueller report was released on Thursday, Facebook spin doctors amended the number of Instagram users affected from "tens of thousands" to "millions." Quick maths.

Comment: Facebook hack leaves 50 million accounts compromised; linked 3rd party apps affected too


Mr. Potato

Crybaby #Resistance journalist has 453-tweet meltdown over Mueller: 'It was collusion, buy my book'

Seth Abramson
© CNNSeptember 2017. Seth Abramson appears on CNN in happier days.
The Mueller report left some of President Donald Trump's conduct up for debate, but clearly stated no collusion with Russia took place. Not for one journalist, who launched a Twitter crusade to prove otherwise...with 453 tweets.

Beginning on the evening before Attorney General William Barr's pre-report press conference, Newsweek columnist and English professor Seth Abramson set out to live-tweet the report's release. Helpfully, Abramson pointed out that he's the bestselling author of Proof of Collusion: How Trump Betrayed America.

Clearly, he found some things to disagree with in the Mueller report - which showed the exact opposite - going on an epic rant in 453 tweets of anger, disbelief, and white-hot liberal rage, (condensed here for easy reading).

Comment: A #Resistance Lefty's mental desintegration chronicled in real time. Fascinating.


Camcorder

Video shows woman caught in door, dragged onto train tracks in San Francisco

Train
Officials in San Francisco are promising a full investigation after a frightening video was released showing a woman getting her finger caught in a closing train door and dragged onto the tracks under the train.

In the surveillance video, the woman can be seen walking down the stairs at the city's Embarcadero station on April 12 when she tries to get on the Muni train as the doors are closing. It appears as though her hand gets stuck in the door as it is closing. She can be seen talking to an employee standing on the platform just feet away, but the train starts moving and she is dragged off the platform and under the train.

The woman was reportedly injured, but officials have not said how seriously.

The video was first acquired by the San Francisco Examiner.

Better Earth

Thank God for western values: The debt of the West to Christianity

notre dame cross
Declarations of hope that Notre Dame can be resurrected have been much in evidence this Holy Week. Such is the lesson of Easter: that life can come from death. Unlike the Eiffel Tower, that other great emblem of Paris, Notre Dame provides the French with evidence that their modern and secular republic has its foundations deeply rooted in the Middle Ages. Notre Dame has always been more than just an assemblage of stone and stained glass. It is a monument as well to a specifically Christian past.

Last summer, one of the world's best-known scientists, a man as celebrated for his polemics against religion as for his writings on evolutionary biology, sat in another cathedral, Winchester, listening to the bells peal. 'So much nicer than the aggressive-sounding "Allahu Akhbar",' Richard Dawkins tweeted. 'Or is that just my cultural upbringing?' A preference for church bells over the sound of Muslims praising God does not just emerge by magic. Dawkins - agnostic, secularist and humanist that he is - absolutely has the instincts of someone brought up in a Christian civilisation.

Perhaps, then, the debt of the contemporary West to Christianity is more deeply rooted than many - believers and non-believers alike - might presume.

Comment: Evidently there is good reason that Christianity has made such an indelible mark on the world, and, in these troubled times, recovering these foundations and the truths they were built upon may prove vital to the survival of our civilization: Also check out SOTT radio's:


Bizarro Earth

Vietnam cries foul as Monsanto victims get huge compensation in US

agent orange
© Vo ThanhNguyen Thi Bich Ngoc (L) of Ho Chi Minh City and her three sons, born with deformities due to the effects of dioxin, as shown in a photo at an exhibition opened last year at the Thua Thien Hue Historical Museum in central Vietnam.
'Where's the justice for Vietnamese victims being destroyed every day by (Monsanto's) toxic chemicals,' asks a senior Vietnamese official.

Major General Tran Ngoc Tho, deputy chairman of the Vietnam Association of Victims of Agent Orange and Dioxin and president of its Ho Chi Minh City branch, has sent a letter asking a U.S. court to reverse its earlier ruling in an Agent Orange case.

Tho cited the jury's ruling in the U.S. federal court of San Francisco on March 19, 2019, which decided that Monsanto's weed killer Roundup causes cancer. It ordered Monsanto to pay around $81 million to 70-year-old Edwin Hardeman of California, who has been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

The major general also cited another case where a San Francisco court in August 2018 awarded a compensation of $289 million by Monsanto to Dewayne Johnson after he was diagnosed with cancer resulting from long-term exposure to Roundup and herbicide Ranger Pro produced by the company.

Comment: To outright admit responsibility and pay compensation - rather than under guise of 'nonrefundable aid packages - may require the US military, in league with big business, to admit its crimes against humanity:


Light Sabers

Zizek-Peterson debate sets off meme war: 'Crustacean Jung v Cocaine Hegel'

jorden peterson Slavoj Zizek
© Rene Johnston/Toronto Star via Getty Images; Jeff Vespa/WireImageDr. Jordan Peterson and Slavoj Zizek
In the wake of Saturday's debate between intellectual superstars Slavoj Zizek and Jordan Peterson, an onslaught of mockery has appeared online satirizing the clash between the highly-memeable thinkers.

Ticket prices reportedly went as high as $1,500, not for a game in the NBA playoffs, but to see these two prominent public intellectuals duke it out over human nature and economic systems. The 'Marxist' Zizek had it out with the 'traditionalist' Peterson who defended the free market in a debate on whether capitalism or Marxism better leads to happiness.

While for some this might not sound like it would generate much interest beyond a philosophy department, around 3,000 people packed into the Sony Centre for the Performing Arts in Toronto to see the ultimate ideological showdown.

Comment: Others had a more measured take on the event.



Exactly.


Attention

New Mexico: Militia group draws scrutiny in detaining migrants at the border

Patrol
© Reuters/Rick Wilking
A right-wing militia group has begun stopping migrant families at gunpoint in southern New Mexico and detaining them before U.S. Border Patrol agents arrive, The New York Times reported Friday.

The group, which calls itself United Constitutional Patriots, has recently filmed their detention of migrants and uploaded the footage on social media, prompting pushback from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

The ACLU denounced the actions, saying the militia is operating without state or federal authority to arrest or detain migrants.

The militia group rounded up nearly 200 migrants who had recently crossed the border near Sunland Park, N.M. The group was reportedly exhausted from their journey to the U.S. and was attempting to seek asylum, the Times reported.

Comment: CNN has more on the border detainment:
Authorities say they're looking into videos posted on the United Constitutional Patriots New Mexico Border Ops Facebook page.

The videos purport to show members of the group detaining migrants, including families with children, who've just crossed the border. They show people often in full military fatigues, with handguns strapped to their sides, wearing gloves and black face masks. Armed men order migrants to stop, force them to sit on the ground and then apparently call Border Patrol to pick them up. At least two videos posted on the group's Facebook page depict a man in fatigues verbally identifying himself as "Border Patrol" as he stops a group of migrants.

A statement on the United Constitutional Patriots' Facebook page describes the group as "Americans that believe in the Constitution and the rights of every American that will stand up for there rights in unity and help keep America safe.

"These people are armed, their intentions are misguided and they certainly don't have training, much less any authority, to be conducting arrests and long-term detentions of people coming across the border," Simonson, executive director for the ACLU of NM, said. "We are concerned this is such a potentially explosive situation, we are worried someone is going to get hurt."



Fire

French cathedral's rector says Notre Dame destruction might have been made worse by computer glitch

notre dame spire
© Agence France-Presse/Geoffroy van der HasseltThe pire collapses
The fire that destroyed the roof of Notre Dame in Paris may have been made worse by a computer glitch, the cathedral's rector said. Officials are also warning about scams as grifters seek to exploit fundraisers for its renovation.

The fire that destroyed the roof of Notre Dame in Paris may have been made worse by a computer glitch, the cathedral's rector said. Officials are also warning about scams as grifters seek to exploit fundraisers for its renovation.

Fire broke out at Notre Dame on Monday, and rapidly spread along the wooden roof frame, severely damaging the Gothic jewel. It is possible the fire was able to spread so quickly because of a "computer glitch" with the alarm system, rector Patrick Chauvet said on Friday.

Comment: Sputnik reports the starting point of the fire has been located:
The origin of the Notre Dame fire was revealed to be the cathedral's roof, according to CNN, citing a police source.

Following a probe involving amateur videos and photos from locals, investigators have drawn the conclusion that the Notre Dame might have caught fire on the roof, towards the base of the iconic spire.

The investigators are also looking into two potential issues related to the conflagration, including a potential alarm system sensor deficiency and the elevators built for the construction workers.
notre dame fire roof
© AP / Thierry MalletFlames and smoke rise from the blaze after the spire toppled over on Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, Monday, April 15, 2019
A massive blaze broke out at the Notre Dame cathedral on Monday evening, resulting in the collapse of the building's spire and two-thirds of its roof. Firefighters, however, managed to extinguish the blaze by Tuesday morning, saving the historic building and the relics it housed.

Earlier, French media reported that investigators consider a short circuit to be the likely cause of the fire at the iconic Paris cathedral.