Society's ChildS


Airplane

Second plane crashes in a week because pilot was unresponsive - Dead NY millionaire and his wife

Larry glazer
Killed: Rochester real estate developer Larry Glazer and his wife Jane, both 68, were aboard the aircraft that lost contact with air traffic controllers and flew 1,700 miles before crashing in the water off Jamaica
Jamaican officials say unresponsive US plane has crashed on the island.

Two F-15 fighter jets were following the private plane over the Atlantic Ocean today. Government officials say the pursuit began after the pilot failed to respond to repeated contact attempts by air traffic controllers.

The FAA says controllers were last able to contact the pilot of the high-performance single-engine turboprop at around 10 a.m., Eastern time. The pilot took off from Rochester, New York, and had filed a flight plan to Naples, Florida.

The fighter jets were launched at around 11:30. An aviation tracking website, Flightaware, showed the plane over the Caribbean at around 2 p.m.

It's the second time in less than a week that private pilot has become unresponsive during a flight. On Saturday, a pilot lost consciousness and his plane drifted into restricted airspace over the nation's capital. Fighter jets were also launched in that case and stayed with the small aircraft until it ran out of fuel and crashed Saturday into the Atlantic.

Handcuffs

Donetsk initiates prisoner swap despite Kiev's breach of ceasefire

Zakharchenko
© REUTERS/ Sergei KarpukhinPrime Minister of the self-proclaimed "Donetsk People's Republic" Alexander Zakharchenko attends a news conference in Donetsk August 11, 2014.
The transfer of captives from the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) to Kiev will begin on Saturday, despite ceasefire defiance in Amvrosiivka, DPR's Prime Minister Aleksander Zakharchenko told reporters Saturday.


Comment: Donetsk is acting impeccably during this crisis - it needs to, in order to counter the propaganda barrage being directed against it and Russia by the West. This way, anyone paying attention can see who is the superior party in this conflict.


"At the moment, the ceasefire agreement is not fully complied with. It is too early to talk about a complete ceasefire," Zakharchenko said.


Comment: Predictably, Kiev is not being good to its word. Who will hold them accountable? Anyone?


"The transfer of prisoners of war will be held today on our part. We hope that on Monday, the Ukrainian side will hold their transfer," he said.


Comment: Good move. By fulfilling their obligations in full and before Kiev, Donetsk puts Kiev in the position of having to comply, or looking like a total monster when they don't. Donetsk holds the cards here. Even if Kiev doesn't follow through, the NAF can always just re-capture any troops that get sent back into the conflict.


Zakharchenko made the statement in lieu of two shelling attacks in Amvrosiivka, within the Donetsk Region, early Saturday.

Family

New life for Ukrainian refugees in Russia

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© UnknownUkrainians head to Russia for safety
Oksana Shevelina, 62, who came here with her elderly mother just a few days ago from their home in eastern Ukraine, squinted at a map of the Russian Federation.

She traced with her index finger an imaginary railroad into the Russian heartland, through the black earth of southern Russia, across the Volga River and into the industrial towns that dot the Ural Mountains a thousand miles away.

She was searching, with difficulty, for her new home.

Comment: The West accuses Russia of attacking Ukraine, yet Russia is the only country protecting Ukrainian people and offering them hope:

- Global Pathocracy, Authoritarian Followers, and the Hope of the World
- Russia sends 300 trucks carrying humanitarian aid to Eastern Ukraine
- Putin urges to open humanitarian corridors to rebuild infrastructure in Eastern Ukraine

Also, compare the open-arm immigration policy of Russia with that of the EU, where the governments and the right sector are screaming about every new immigrants. The difference is like day and night.


Stop

UNICEF report: 120 million girls, 10% worldwide sexually abused

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© Reuters / Adnan AbidiDemonstrators from All India Democratic Women's Association (AIDWA) hold placards and shout slogans during a protest against the recent killings of two teenage girls, in New Delhi May 31, 2014.
One in ten girls under the age of 20, or about 120 million across the globe, have been sexually abused, according to the latest conservative figures by UNICEF.

The same report found that six in ten kids aged 2-14 are regularly subject to physical punishment.

According to UNICEF's report based on 190 countries, between 30 and 80 percent of victims don't disclose experiences of childhood sexual abuse until adulthood, while many others (a number impossible to quantify) remain silent for their entire lives.

For instance, in India, in 2011, 10.6 percent of rape victims were under the age of 14.

One might think that when a girl gets married, the trouble stops, but it's not true: almost one in three married young women have been victims of emotional, physical and/or sexual violence inflicted by their partners - especially in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Tanzania and Zimbabwe.

Comment: Hidden in plain sight US child homicide rate leads West UNICEF


Handcuffs

Desperate US fast-food workers demanding higher wages, hundreds arrested

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© Andrew Burton/Getty ImagesProtesters demanding higher wages and unionization for fast food workers march on Thursday in New York.
A nationwide protest against low wages in the US fast-food industry culminated in hundreds of arrests on Thursday, as activists stepped up their campaign for higher pay and better benefits for workers at companies such as McDonald's, Burger King and KFC.

Protesters in more than 100 cities including Chicago, New York and Detroit took part in sit-ins and marches outside fast-food restaurants, with many conducting acts of civil disobedience designed to get them arrested.

Many fast-food jobs pay little more than the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. Thursday's day of action called for a minimum wage of at least $15.

By the afternoon organisers reported police had arrested 436 people nationwide with more than 43 arrests in Detroit, 19 in New York City, 23 in Chicago, 10 in Little Rock, Arkansas, and 10 in Las Vegas. Protestors were arrested in New York after blocking traffic in front of a McDonald's in Times Square. In Los Angeles police warned fast food workers sitting in the street they were part of an "illegal assembly" before arresting them.

Comment: See also: The explosive growth of poverty in America: 21 statistics that everyone should know Americans Don't Realize Just How Badly We're Getting


Alarm Clock

40 million tons of toxic coal waste sit next to prison with 'alarming rates of illness'

jail
© Shutterstock
Soon after Marcus Santos became a prisoner at the Pennsylvania State Correctional Institution (SCI) in Fayette, he says he began feeling sick. He developed a rash on his left side with large welts. He became dizzy, nauseous, and experienced shortness of breath. His face and throat would swell, making it difficult to breathe. At night, the symptoms were the worst.

"I suffered almost everyday of the 15 months I was at that prison," he said. "It became clear to me that I [was] being left for dead."

Eventually, a doctor outside the prison recommended Santos be transferred to another prison, and he was - to the SCI in Smithfield, more than 300 miles away. Since then, Santos' symptoms have "subsided substantially or completely," according to the public interest law firm who interviewed him.

That interview is part of a report released by the law firm this week detailing "alarming rates of illness" at SCI Fayette. The Abolishionist Law Center's report, based on a year-long investigation, drew a link between those rates of illness and the prisoners' proximity to large amounts coal ash, a toxic waste byproduct of burning coal.

According to the ALC, which works to end mass incarceration of minorities and poor people, SCI Fayette is "inescapably situated in the midst of a massive toxic waste dump." The facility is located within 500 feet of a 500-acre coal refuse disposal site, which contains about 40 million tons of waste, including two coal slurry ponds and millions of cubic yards of coal ash piled high on top of the coal refuse, the report said. Coal ash ponds contain lead, arsenic and mercury.

Likely because of their exposure to pollutants from the site, the report said a large majority of the incarcerated people interviewed - 81 percent - are experiencing respiratory and throat conditions, ranging anywhere from general sinus problems to sores, cysts, and tumors in the nose, mouth, and throat. Sixty-eight percent of prisoners interviewed are experiencing gastrointestinal problems, the report said, and 52 percent have reported skin conditions like rashes and cysts. Twelve percent of prisoners interviewed said they have issues with their thyroid gland.

Quenelle

Kentucky man is arrested for terrorism after posting song lyrics on Facebook

Jamie Eveans FB post
Another day, another idiotic freak out over a harmless Facebook post. The latest incident centers on 31-year-old James Evans of Kentucky, who had the temerity to share the lyrics from a song called "Class Dismissed (A Hate Primer)" by the thrash metal band Exodus. Here are the lyrics in question:
Student bodies lying dead in the halls, a blood splattered treatise of hate. Class dismissed is my hypothesis, gun fire ends in debate.

People

Are your friends leaving Facebook?

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© Alamy
I logged in north, south, east and west. I checked it at work and during Sunday rest. I liked and commented, posted status and song. I thought Facebook would last forever: I was wrong.

Apologies if that feels like a bit of a heavy introduction for a piece on the decline of Facebook amongst my peers but - like Auden's love - I had always assumed the network would be constant presence in my life. A couple of times at university I wondered what would happen if people stopped using the site, or if it disappeared. I would have no physical photos of my college friends, like those of my parents' that we sometimes unearthed at home; I would be stripped of the wall-to-wall messages we had built up over the years and left with only a handful of letters and cards.

Sometimes I thought about printing out pictures or saving some of the more memorable messages to computer, but I never did. Just like three-month summer holidays and the ability to function after four hours' sleep, I reasoned that Facebook would always be there.

But two years after graduation, to continue in the mournful vein in which I began, the site is crumbling before my eyes. There's nothing new about predicting the demise of world's most popular social networking site: articles in 2010 told us that "everyone was quitting Facebook", 2013 was the year of "virtual identity suicide" and figures released earlier this year suggested some 600,000 people in the UK had "disappeared" from the site last December (a claim the California-based company denies).

Comment: Facebook originally was a novelty helping people connect but instead has morphed into a corporation that seeks to maximize profits by manipulation.


Roses

World Health Organization: One person commits suicide every 40 seconds

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© AFP/Robyn Beck Robin Williams, pictured on June 25, 2007 at the Pacific Cinerama Dome in Hollywood, California.
One person commits suicide every 40 seconds -- more than all the yearly victims of wars and natural disaster -- with the highest toll among the elderly, the United Nations said Thursday.

In its first report on suicide, the UN's World Health Organisation blamed intense media coverage when celebrities kill themselves for fuelling the problem.

"Suicide is an amazing public health problem. There is one suicide every 40 seconds -- it is a huge number," said Shekhar Saxena, director of WHO's mental health department, at the presentation of the report in Geneva.

"Suicide kills more than conflicts, wars and natural catastrophes," he said. "There are 1.5 million violent deaths every year in the world, of which 800,000 are suicides."

Some of the highest rates of suicide are found in central and eastern Europe and in Asia, with 25 percent occurring in rich countries, the report says. Men are almost twice as likely as women to take their own lives. Common methods are hanging, gunshots, and especially in rural areas the use of poisonous insecticides.

"Globally, suicide rates are highest in people aged 70 years and over. In some countries, however, the highest rates are found among the young," WHO said. "Notably, suicide is the second leading cause of death in 15-29 year-olds globally."

Comment: Russell Brand commented recently about Robin Williams's suicide and what it says about our society. You can read it here:

Russell Brand: Robin Williams' divine madness will no longer disrupt the sadness of the world


V

Detroit: Thirty taken into police custody after minimum wage protest outside McDonald's

Thirty people were briefly taken into police custody after a minimum wage protest outside an east side McDonald's got out of hand Thursday morning.
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© Bill Szumanski/WWJ News Radio
Those arrested were among the crowd of about 200 protesters marching around the restaurant on Mack Avenue. The demonstration was part of an effort by workers at fast-food chains around the country to boost the minimum wage to $15 an hour.

Several of the protesters went from civil picketing to locking arms and sitting in the street, preventing traffic from passing through.

"At one point they were walking on both sides of Mack Avenue but they are now concentrating themselves in the eastbound lanes, they have those completely blocked off here, walking and holding up their signs," WWJ's Bill Szumanski said from above the scene in Chopper 950.

Police waited for about 30 minutes, warning the protesters they could either move on their own or face arrest.

"The protesters who were sitting on Mack Avenue and refusing to move had a bit of a negotiating session between the police department and the organizers - that didn't go anywhere," Szumanski said. "So, police have now swooped in and what they have done is arrested at least 20, maybe 30 people. They're leading them away in handcuffs to the back of the squad cars."

Comment: McDonald's has plenty of money, just not for the peons. Capitalism was designed to benefit those at the top of the food chain, not the slave labor.

The Fast-Food Industry's $4.2 Billion Marketing Blitz