Society's ChildS


Heart - Black

NHS blood scandal inquiry: 25K Britons could be infected with contaminated blood from US prisoners and addicts


RT
Tue, 25 Sep 2018 15:29 UTC
NHS infected blood
Some 2,500 people died as a result of the contaminated blood. The samples were imported from the US and were used to treat thousands of Britons throughout the 1970s and into the 80s
Tens of thousands of Britons could be living with deadly viruses after being given contaminated blood imported from the US decades ago, an inquiry into the NHS blood scandal heard.

During the inquiry, which opened yesterday, victims spoke of how they have been administered a "death sentence" upon learning they have been infected with HIV or hepatitis C, following routine treatment. Many of the victims were only informed years after, having already infected partners or even their own children.

Some 2,500 people died as a result of the contaminated blood. The samples were imported from the US and were used to treat thousands of Britons throughout the 1970s and into the 80s. The blood was mainly given to haemophiliacs, though those who required transfusions following complications during childbirth were also involved.

The inquiry's chairman, Sir Brian Langstaff a former High Court judge, said the scandal was the worst in the NHS' history.

Comment: New documents show Thatcher MP's tried to cover-up govt. role in 2,400 AIDS, Hepatitis C deaths from contaminated blood

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Hammer

Courtesy of Soros? Sen. Ted Cruz and wife harassed at DC restaurant by leftist mob protesting against Kavanaugh


RT
Tue, 25 Sep 2018 14:51 UTC
Senator Ted Cruz protest Kavanaugh
© SmashRacismDC / TwitterUS Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) being confronted by activists protesting the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the US Supreme Court
Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and his wife have been forced out of a restaurant in Washington, DC, after they were mobbed by a group of anti-Brett Kavanaugh protesters. A video shows people chanting "We believe survivors!"

A video posted on Twitter by Smash Racism DC group shows Cruz and his wife Heidi being encircled by a crowd of agitated activists confronting the Texas Senator about his continued support for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, who faces at least two allegations of sexual misconduct, dating back decades.

The activists, among them both men and women, are chanting "We believe survivors" in an apparent reference to two women, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and Deborah Ramirez. Ford, now a professor in California, claims that Kavanaugh attempted to sexually assault her at a high school party in 1982. Ramirez, who came forward with allegations against Kavanaugh on Sunday, alleged that Cruz displayed his genitals to her during a dorm party at Yale when they were both drinking as freshmen.


Comment: Kavanaugh accusations expose all that's wrong with #MeToo: Old, unproven, politically timed to ruin


Comment:

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Pills

New book 'Dopesick' documents how doctors and Purdue Pharma are responsible for getting millions of Americans addicted to drugs

Gary Joad
World Socialist Website
Tue, 25 Sep 2018 00:00 UTC
Dopesick
Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America, by Beth Macy, Little, Brown and Company, 2018, 384 pages.

In just over 300 pages, Beth Macy, author of Factory Man and Truevine, paints a searing and heartbreaking portrait of the Appalachian victims of the current opioid epidemic in the United States. The depth of the crisis was most recently revealed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which reported that it took the lives of at least 72,000 people in the US last year. Macy is a career journalist residing in Roanoke, Virginia.

Recent estimates are that approximately 2.6 million persons in the US are addicted to opioids in one form or another. Some 300,000 persons have died of overdoses in the last 15 years, as these became the leading cause of death in people under age 50. Estimates are that another 300,000 will overdose and die in the next five years. Today in the US, it is vastly easier to become addicted than it is to obtain treatment.

The ongoing murderous opioid plague began in rural America with the dispensing of "controlled" narcotic pharmaceuticals by physicians whose practice histories of prescribing excessive pain-relieving medicines were identified and made available via data mining by IMS Health and provided to Purdue Pharma of Delaware, makers of OxyContin and other narcotic analgesics.

The author reviews the drug manufacturers' predatory practices in the rural communities of West Virginia, Virginia, Maine, and the rust-belt states of Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana, where shuttered factories, mines, and textile mills left a working-class citizenry desperate and vulnerable, with their resulting labor legacy of deep poverty and the physical pain of mine, factory and mill work.
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Mr. Potato

The Grey Lady is becoming a laughingstock: NYT tech expert ridiculed after 'fact-checking' obviously fake Trump pic


RT
Tue, 25 Sep 2018 13:40 UTC
viral picture trump floods fake
Viral image doctored to show US President Donald Trump handing out a MAGA hat to a hurricane victim
A New York Times columnist has posted a 'fact-check' of a widely-shared, clearly doctored picture of US President Donald Trump in a hurricane rescue. Conservatives gleefully suggested other obvious Trump memes for NYT to verify.

Kevin Roose, NYT's business columnist, who has taken on writing about social media and US politics, triggered an avalanche of memes and mostly sarcastic comments on Twitter when he reposted a picture showing US President Donald Trump handing a MAGA cap to a hurricane victim standing waist-deep in muddy waters.

The original photo was taken during the Texas flooding in 2015 and its doctored version resurfaced during Hurricane Harvey.
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Roses

'Enough to fill 2 schools': 700 children died after falling from windows in Russia this year


RT
Tue, 25 Sep 2018 13:11 UTC
Russian child deaths
© Konstantin Chalabov / Sputnik
Over 700 kids fell out of windows to their death in Russia in 2017, while 500 others tragically died during summer holidays due to safety violations, an ombudsman said, urging a nationwide program to change the "scary" trend.

Children falling out of windows has become "a huge problem" in the country, Anna Kuznetsova, Russia's ombudsman for children's rights, said at a Monday press-conference in Moscow.

"More than 700 children fell out of the windows this year. It's a scary figure. In fact, this is enough to fill two schools," she said.

The summer holidays that should be the happiest time for the kids also took 429 children's lives this year, the ombudsman said, citing the Investigative Committee. It's a sharp increase compared to the same period last year when there were 294 fatalities.
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Handcuffs

Say what? Mother arrested and thrown in jail for taking daughter's cell phone away in act of discipline

Jack Burns
The Free Thought Project
Sun, 23 Sep 2018 00:00 UTC
mom arrested
A Michigan mom was arrested and charged with theft after taking away her daughter's cell phone as punishment.

A Michigan mother was arrested after she took away her daughter's cell phone. The mother's individual decision to discipline her child by taking her phone away was followed by her prompt arrest.

Jodie May did what classroom teachers do every day across America. But we've never reported a story where a teacher, a representative of the state, has ever been arrested and charged for effecting discipline in the classroom. But when May tried to do the same thing with her teenage daughter, she was charged with misdemeanor theft.

May was arrested on May 12, the day before Mother's Day, and was breastfeeding her 1-month-old newborn when Ottawa County deputies arrived at her door to let her know she was being arrested for taking her daughter's phone away. Incredulously, the police state goons had no problem separating a mother from her nursing toddler.

Comment: Not even Kafka could have imagined state-sponsored persecution on such absurd levels!

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Handcuffs

Man wearing vest with mysterious 'dangling cables' arrested at Berlin airport


RT
Tue, 25 Sep 2018 11:22 UTC
Berlin airport
© Axel Schmidt / Reuters
German police have arrested a man who was spotted wearing a vest from which cables were protruding at Berlin's Schoenefeld Airport. He brandished a beer bottle at security officials who approached him.

The man was spotted behaving suspiciously in a carpark at Schoenefeld Airport just after 8am. He threatened officials with a beer bottle when they approached him. He has since been arrested by police, with forces cordoning off sections of the carpark for further investigation.

Police have concluded their inspection of all items belonging to the man, confirming that none of the objects pose any danger to the public. Cordons at the airport have been lifted.
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Life Preserver

Indonesian teen rescued after being lost at sea for 49 days


Sputnik
Tue, 25 Sep 2018 11:22 UTC
Aldi Novel Adilang fish trap
© Screenshot/Lorvil Ali 2
Aldi Novel Adilang, a 19-year-old from Manado, Indonesia, grew to understand what it truly means to be lonely earlier this year after the floating fish trap he maintained off the Indonesian coast suddenly broke from its mooring and turned him into a castaway for 49 days.

According to The Jakarta Post, on July 14, just a few months after Adilang took up a new six-month post on a rompong, things took a turn for the worse - the rope that anchored the floating hut to the seafloor suddenly snapped. A rompong is a floating hut used to capture fish in open waters. Adilang was hired by the rompong's owner to light lamps around the hut as a way to attract fish.

Before Adilang was sent floating some 1,300 miles away from home, his only contact with other humans was when the rompong's owner would send someone to collect the trapped fish and hand Adilang his supplies for the week, which consisted of food, gas for cooking, clean water and fuel for the generator. He also had a walkie-talkie.
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Family

Women, rise up! We need to protect our men from unproven, life-destroying accusations

Melissa Danford
The Federalist
Mon, 24 Sep 2018 08:47 UTC
court finger accusation
© Lachlan Hardy / Flickr
I'm a wife and mother of four boys, and what I am seeing right now angers me. The number of people - politicians, members of the media, and even people I know - who are willing to sacrifice due process for men is shocking. If we go down this road, it is hard to see how we can come back.

My husband is in the military, so I am no stranger to a culture of double standards, but until now we thought it was more isolated. In the military it is common knowledge, whether senior leaders will acknowledge it or not, that a mere accusation of sexual harassment or assault, proven or not, is enough to end a man's career.

This is an unfortunate but expected development in a military that is entirely beholden to the forces of feminism. The effects of such an environment are terrible and destructive, but they have at least been contained. This Brett Kavanaugh-Christine Blasey Ford affair has shown me that wives and mothers of sons everywhere need to take a stand.

All indications now are that too many in our society have abandoned the idea that all people, men and women, are innocent until proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt through due process. Instead people want a guilty until proven innocent standard for men accused of sexual assault.
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Boat

Container ship sails through the Arctic for the first time

Brendon Petersen
Popular Mechanics
Wed, 19 Sep 2018 00:00 UTC
Maersk ship
© Unknown
Explorers and navigators have long searched for a way to move ships through the Arctic Circle as find a faster way to move goods between the Atlantic and the Pacific without having to go around either Asia or South America. Groups of people hunted for the fabled Northwest passage through North America for decades. The problem, of course, is that the Arctic contains too much ice.

Over the past few years, however, ice levels in the Arctic have been hitting record lows thanks to climate change, and while its effects are almost universally negative, one benefit is opened northern sea routes. Over the past month, a container ship sailing from Eastern Russia is pioneering a new Arctic route by being the first such ship to cross the Arctic Ocean.

On August 23, the container ship Venta Maersk left the Russian port of Vladivostok and headed to Bremerhaven in Germany. Normally, a trip like that would take the Venta Maersk through the Suez Canal on a 34 day trip. Instead, the ship will sail through the sea north of Russia on a route that will only take 23 days.

Last week, the Venta Maersk passed through the Sannikov Strait, the narrowest and most hazardous part of its journey, and is expected to arrive in Germany by the end of the week. Once it arrives, it will become the first container ship to complete a successful route through the Arctic Circle.
Arctic passage map

Comment: According to the Washington Post:
In its historic first transit of the Northern Sea Route, the Venta is carrying a cargo of electronics put aboard at Busan in South Korea and frozen fish loaded at the Russian port of Vladivostok. The vessel is scheduled to stop at Bremerhaven, Germany, then terminate in Russia at St. Petersburg in late September.

The shipping line stresses that this is a "one-off sea trial," an exploratory voyage to look and learn and gather scientific data, Maersk spokesperson Janina von Spalding said.

There are Russian pilots aboard to help navigate past the hazards of floating ice. First-year ice is usually two or three feet thick, but in some years, driven by wind and current, young and old ice piles up alongside the Russian islands in ridges 14-feet high.

Four Russian nuclear-powered icebreakers are ready to assist the Venta if needed. They're routinely deployed to smash through the ice and lead convoys of ships in the fall, winter and spring months.

Malte Humpert, founder of the Arctic Institute, who tracks marine traffic at the pole, cautioned that the environment remains unpredictable.


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