Society's Child
Five passionate and well-informed speakers, who included the former British Ambassador to Syria Peter Ford, detailed the carnage and chaos that has been unleashed around the globe by the aggressive, warmongering policies of the US and its closest allies.
The event could have been called 'War on Trial.' It might have been called 'Regime Change on Trial.' Or 'Economic Sanctions on Trial.' But it was - thanks to organizer Gregory Sharkey - called 'Imperialism on Trial' and, as the first speaker, the writer and broadcaster John Wight declared, that in itself was highly significant.
Oh, how easily people forget. It would be difficult to find a greater indicator of the fickle nature of politics or the hypocrisy of the party faithful than these two polls.
Democrats find Donald Trump so utterly loathsome that the man who illegally launched the catastrophic Iraq War, and signed the Patriot Act - stripping Americans of their privacy in the name of fighting terrorism - is enjoying the rehabilitation of his image in the eyes of the party that so vehemently opposed him all those years he was in office.
Police, medical officials, and local agencies referred 127 cases of kids in 2014 who could be sexually exploited. Last year, 62 of those children admitted they had been sold for sex. The Center for Youth Safe Harbor program which offers to counsel the children and teens still have more than 200 open cases.
Child rights and protection advocate Melanie Blow, Chief Operations Officer for the Stop Abuse Campaign says such deplorable practice has been going on "for a very, very long time."

Abby looks up while waiting for the arrival of her owner at Animal Protectors of Allegheny Valley on Jan. 30, 2018. She was reunited with her Washington Township owners after about 10 years.
Ten years ago, the year-old black lab mix was playing with the kids outside Debra Suierveld's Washington Township home and wandered off.
They looked for her, but she was gone.
Abby was declared deceased.
On Saturday, Suierveld got a call from Animal Protectors of Allegheny Valley. They said they had her dog.
Couldn't be, she said. Her two dogs were right there with her, including Cedona - her black lab mix.
Then they said her name: Abby.
Comment: There's nothing quite as heartwarming as stories about beloved pets being reunited with their owners. See:
- Hikers rescue dog lost on Colorado 14er for 6 weeks
- Police threaten to jail and fine man posting flyers for lost medical alert dog
- Lost dog found protecting small kitten
- Lost dog found by owner hours before scheduled euthanasia
- Dog survives five months on island after being lost at sea

On the back of her gift message was a handwritten note that read: “Please help, Amazon is painful!”
Zahina Rani, 18, received a belated present from her sister Sanna who asked for a birthday message to be included.
But on the back of the gift message Zahina said she was shocked to find the apparent desperate handwritten note which also said: "Amazon is painful".
Comment: Bezos is happy to reap the profits but Amazon has come under fire for its inhumane treatment of its workers:
- Intolerable working conditions at Amazon's newest warehouse - UPDATE
- Slave labor: Amazon workers in UK treated like 'animals' in exhausting working conditions
- How Amazon censored my book exposing Bill Browder
- Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, JP Morgan team up to redesign US healthcare
- Amazon's Jeff Bezos could be close to controlling $53 billion in Federal spending
Finland, Sweden and Denmark have yet to approve the new pipeline project, but with Germany as a major economic power on board it is increasingly likely that they will follow suit.
Comment: US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson says this pipeline will be a 'threat' to Europe's energy security:
Poland, Ukraine and Baltic states fear the pipeline would increase Europe's dependence on Russian gas and provide the Kremlin with billions of dollars of additional revenue to finance a further military build-up on European Union's borders.However, the biggest threat has been from the US, and German businessmen know it. German politicians are increasingly pressuring Merkel to abandon US-imposed sanctions altogether:
"Like Poland, the United States opposes the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. We see it as undermining Europe's overall energy security and stability," Tillerson said at a joint news conference with the Polish foreign minister in Warsaw.
"Our opposition is driven by our mutual strategic interests," he said.
Sanctions are "a dead horse one should not ride anymore," Ramelow told Der Spiegel as he pointed out that they did not actually contribute anything to the resolution of the Ukrainian crisis. Ukraine's problems cannot be "solved through a symbolic policy at the expense of our industries," he said. [...]
In December 2017, a study published by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy showed that Germany is de facto Europe's biggest loser from the EU penalties introduced against Russia. German exports to Russia dropped nearly 40 percent with the country losing €618 million ($768 million) each month because of the sanctions.
San Bernardino, CA - The family of Gerardo Bernabe Vasquez, 21, is now frantically searching for their beloved family member after he was last seen in handcuffs with a San Bernardino Sheriff's deputy's boot on his face.
According to the family, Vasquez suffered a "mental health episode" last month and they are unsure if he's since relapsed. They are now asking for the public's help in finding him and raising awareness to the fact that he was last seen being beaten by cops while handcuffed.
According to police, the violence started after one officer detained Vasquez for acting strangely. During the stop, a struggle ensued until another officer showed up to help get Vasquez under control. Vasquez was then placed in handcuffs at which point one officer appears to hold him down while another repeatedly stomps on his face.
Comment: If a man was missing and had been last seen being beaten by anyone other than a policeman, what would you think most likely happened?
Here's a quick rundown of the 20 most hated U.S. companies, according to 24/7 Wall St., which took customer surveys, employee reviews and news events into account in devising its list:
Comment: For more on the debate surrounding the issue of sexual harassment, mentioned often in the list above, see:
- #MeToo movement drops office romances to 10-year low - survey
- Liam Neeson: Sexual harassment allegations have become a witch-hunt
- #MeToo is about destroying masculinity, not about sexual harassment
- The Feminist Seduction of Western Society
According to Turkish media, the skyward-facing portrait is located on the slope of Mount Darmik in the north-western Syrian Kurdish enclave, which is being targeted by a Turkish air-and-ground operation. The footage of the airstrike shows the giant portrait from the air before a powerful explosion hits it. As the clouds of smoke and dust dissipate, a gaping hole can be seen where the Kurdish leader's month was.

16-year-old Palestinian Ahed al-Tamimi appears in court at Ofer Military Court in Ramallah, West Bank on 17 January 2018
Israel's Ofer military court, located west of the West Bank city of Ramallah, delayed the trial yesterday that was originally scheduled to take place tomorrow.
Tamimi, a resident of Nabi Saleh in the occupied West Bank, was arrested after a video of her and her cousin forcing Israeli occupation forces off her family's land went viral on social media.
The incident came moments after occupation forces shot her 14-year-old cousin in the head with rubber-coated steel bullets. The shot required dangerous surgery which involved removing part of the boy's skull in order to take out the bullet.
Comment: Israel may be doing this as a form of psychological torture. They want this brave teenage girl to pay for 'humiliating' Israeli soldiers with well deserved slaps.
For the incident that lead to her imprisonment, see:
The IDF vs The Teenage Girl: Palestinian Activist Ahed Tamimi Arrested For Slapping Soldiers Who Shot Boy
Please consider signing the letter to free Ahed Tamimi.












Comment: The horror of child trafficking is a disturbing reflection of the ills of our world: