Society's ChildS


Ambulance

Detective shot dead during raid in Ireland

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© Photograph: Kim Haughton for the GuardianSinn Fein president Gerry Adams said he was deeply shocked by the detective's murder.
Four men fled after botched hold-up on a cash delivery to a credit union near Dundalk.

A detective has died after he was shot during a botched hold-up outside the town of Dundalk in the Republic of Ireland.

The Garda officer, who was in his 40s, was among colleagues who were escorting a cash delivery to a credit union in the County Louth town, which is close to the border with Northern Ireland.

Several shots were fired during the incident at the Lordship Credit Union in the Jenkinstown area at about 9.30pm on Friday.

The officer, who was based at Dundalk Garda station, was fatally injured in the shooting. He was named by Gardai as Detective Garda Adrian Donohoe.

Garda sources said that after shooting the detective the raiders seized the money stolen from the credit union and drove off. Four men who are believed to have fled the scene in a grey Volkswagen Passat are being sought by the force.

Extinguisher

10 killed, 14 injured in fire at Moscow underground parking lot

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© RIA Novosti/Igor Rustak
At least 10 people have died and 14 others were injured in a massive blaze at an underground parking lot in Moscow. Another 10 people were rescued.

The accident happened in a building under construction in south-east Moscow. All the victims are said to be workers at the construction site that turned out to be blocked underground when the parking lot caught fire. Four of them died on the way to hospital, Moscow police said.

Five people have sustained injuries and carbon monoxide poisoning, and been hospitalized, with three of them placed in intensive care.

Megaphone

At least 50 killed, 90 injured in Venezuela prison riot

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© AFP Photo / Dedwinson Alvarez-Diario el ImpulsoMembers of the National Guard take shelter before a riot in front of the prison Uribana, in Barquisimeto, Lara state, Venezuela, on January 25, 2013
At least 50 people are reported to have been killed and 90 more injured as inmates at a Venezuelan prison clashed with National Guard troops on Friday.

Most of those injured at the Uribana prison in Lara state suffered gunshot wounds, hospital official Ruy Medina told AFP. He stressed that the death toll was "alarming," saying it was based solely on bodies brought to the hospital.

Bizarro Earth

Chili powder and knives given to Mumbai women to fend off rapists

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© AFP Photo / Punit Paranjpe
The Shiv Sena party has distributed knives and chili powder to women in Mumbai to send a message to 'eve-teasers' after the fatal gang rape of a student in Delhi last month, which has ignited a debate on India's appalling rise in sexual offenses.

The Shiv Sena party, an ally of the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has distributed 21,000 knives with 3-inch (7 cm) blades to women in Mumbai and its surrounding areas and plans to hand out a total of 100,000.

"This is a symbolic gesture. Its only to pass a signal to eve-teasers, anti-social elements and perpetrators of crime against women that women are empowered and can take care of themselves," said Rahul Narvekar, a spokesman for the party. 'Eve teasing' is an Indian euphemism for molesting women.

"Don't be afraid of using this knife if someone attacks you. We have set up a team of nine advocates to protect you from any potential court cases that may arise." Ajay Chaudhari, who is running the knife campaign for Shiv Sena, was quoted as saying by the Party's newspaper, Saamana.

Syringe

Heroin's coming back in a big way - in affluent suburbs, small cities and rural towns

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© AFP Photo
For years, heroin was considered an affliction mainly of poor urban neighborhoods. But these days, the drug is becoming popular in affluent suburbs, small cities, and even rural towns - especially among young people.

From Arizona to New Jersey, many communities that never imagined they would have a heroin problem now face a rising toll of addiction, overdoses, and even deaths.

"You would have to go pretty remote to find a place that didn't have this," says Kathleen Kane-Willis, a researcher at Roosevelt University in Chicago who has tracked heroin use since 2004. "It's just everywhere."

But for communities and in particular parents, the problem can come as a total surprise.

Take Tamara Olt and her husband, who were vacationing in Mexico last April when they got the call that every parent dreads. One of their sons was lying unconscious in his basement room at the family's home in Dunlap, a small town in central Illinois.

Joshua Olt died in the emergency room that evening. He was 16.

Pistol

Minnesota man pointed AK-47 at daughter during argument over grades, charges say

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© Photo courtesy Ramsey County sheriff's officeKirill Bartashevitch
A St. Paul man pointed an AK-47 rifle at his teenage daughter in a dispute over her getting two B's instead of straight A's, according to a criminal complaint filed Friday, Jan 25.

The Ramsey County attorney's office charged Kirill Bartashevitch, 51, of St. Paul with two counts of terroristic threats, one against the girl and the other against her mother. Bartashevitch is a Minneapolis Public Schools employee. The complaint gives this account:

Police were called to a school on Jan. 17 after a school social worker received a report from a parent who said she'd been monitoring her son's electronic communications and saw a message to her son. In the message, Bartashevitch's daughter said her father had pointed a rifle at her.

Apple Green

Apple audit finds child workers in China

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© AP
Apple has vowed to route out children from its vast workforce after an audit in China revealed one of the company's component makers employed over 70 underage workers. The tech giant increased its audits by 72 percent in 2012 following numerous scandals emerging over working conditions in its Chinese factories, including a spate of suicides in manufacturer Foxconn factories in 2010.


Heart - Black

Drugs, wired warriors and "virtual" insanity: The creation of a zombie army

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The Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs have spent over $4.5 billion on antidepressants, antipsychotics and anti-anxiety drugs over the past decade despite more than 170 warnings issued by international drug regulatory agencies warning of drug induced suicide, violence, mania, psychosis, aggression, hallucinations, death and much more.
In an effort to create the "Super Soldier," the U.S. military spends hundreds of millions of dollars on psychiatric research programs that can only be described as science fiction-esque experimentation. The Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), a mental health watchdog group, is dedicated to exposing these mental health abuses.

It's no secret that the nation's military forces long have been used as guinea pigs for psychological and pharmaceutical experiments. Recent history is littered with examples of the botched experiments brought to light in the form of lawsuits and congressional investigations. As for the troops, well, it appears they truly are expendable.

The military is spending billions of dollars on psychiatric drugs; a Nextgov investigation published on May 17, 2012 uncovered the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs having spent nearly $2 billion on antipsychotics and anti-anxiety drugs over the past decade, and the Dec. 29. 2012 Austin American-Statesman article, "Soaring cost of military drugs could hurt budget," quoted Department of Defense spending of $2.7 billion on antidepressants, totaling more than $4.5 billion in the last decade, despite more than 170 warnings issued by international drug regulatory agencies warning of drug induced suicide, violence, mania, psychosis, aggression, hallucinations, death and much more. The U.S. Military's Central Command policy even allows a 90-180 day supply of highly addictive psychiatric drugs before deployment.

There is also Seroquel, or "Serokill," as it now is referred to, which is not permitted for treatment of deploying troops with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, but, rather, is prescribed off-label to treat insomnia. The fact that "Serokill" is still in the military's formulary becomes more bizarre when one considers that the antipsychotic has been suspected of being linked to hundreds of "sudden cardiac deaths" among returning soldiers.

Yet, in desperation, top brass are continuing to turn to psychiatrists and psychologists who apparently have seen way too many sci-fi movies and seem ready "to go where no man has gone before," when it comes to altering the human mind. But when one becomes fully aware of the planned and on-going experiments, the famous line from The Fly comes to mind: "Heeeeelp meeeee!"

Pistol

SOTT Focus: Liars, Gun Control and Money in a Culture of Violence

Liars, Gun Control and Money in a Culture of Violence1

Load up on guns, bring your friends
It's fun to lose and to pretend
She's overboard and self-assured
Oh, no, I know a dirty word


'Smells Like Teen Spirit' - Kurt Cobain2

Gun control is a hot topic right now. As usual, COINTELPRO is in full force trying to control and define the debate within the narrowest possible field, limiting the questions people ask and presenting loud and obnoxious pundits who are supposed to represent "the people." We doubt the people are this mentally backwards.

Gun and weapon control has a long and illustrious3 history. It has never led to any tangible results. Murders are just as prevalent, if not more, than at any other time in history (rates of murder and violence tend to rise and fall throughout history4). If history is taken as a lesson, reliance on gun control in the forms of registration of ownership and limiting of the types of arms and ammunitions, has caused more deaths than it has ever prevented.

People are focused on the now. The collective memory of a civilization is very short. I have heard the number 3 years suggested as the average duration of recall for the ordinary person; sometimes it is more, sometimes less. I really don't know. I only know that it is shorter than it should be.

Each successive generation appears to feel as if they have moved beyond the influence of the problems of their forebears in a poorly defined and mentally retarded concept called 'progress'5. There is no such thing as progress. Man is a bit like a hamster in a cage; eventually he always comes full circle.6 No matter how hard he runs, he's never going to get anywhere until he learns to step off the damned wheel.

It's the same dance, just a different tune.

Yoda

Swartz legacy: Countering the banality of evil in the bureaucratic machine

In this interview with Aaron Swartz from three years ago, we get a glimpse of the talent, energy and commitment to Truth that drove this pioneer of Internet freedom and civil liberties.