Society's Child

New York jury finds Iran-linked office tower can be seized by US govt

RT
Fri, 30 Jun 2017 08:22 UTC

A New York jury has concluded that a tower located in Manhattan can be seized by the US government. The nonprofit organization that owns the building was determined to be in violation of US sanctions against Iran.

The Alavi foundation, the company which is a majority owner of the tower, is accused of concealing the knowledge that its minority owner and partner company, Assa Corp, was a front for Iran, according to Reuters.

Acting US Attorney Joon H. Kim said that

"for over a decade, hiding in plain sight, this 36-story Manhattan office tower secretly served as a front for the Iranian government and as a gateway for millions of dollars to be funneled to Iran in clear violation of US sanctions laws. In this trial, 650 Fifth Avenue's secret was laid bare for all to see, and today's jury verdict affirms what we have been alleging since 2008: that through all the efforts to sanction and isolate Iran, a state sponsor of terrorism, the owners of 650 Fifth Avenue gave the Iranian government a critical foothold in the very heart of Manhattan through which Iran successfully circumvented US economic sanctions," a Department of Justice press release stated.

The jury said that the US government had confirmed that the property was traceable, or involved in money laundering. The government wanted to seize the building, which may be worth close to $1 billion, in pursuance of benefiting people with legal judgments against Iran in relation to bombings or other attacks, Reuters reported.

Hero cop in Bangkok prevents knife attack with compassion and a hug — not violence

Matt Agorist
Free Thought Project
Thu, 29 Jun 2017 00:00 UTC

A cop on the other side of the globe just showed the world that cops can actually stop a person armed with a knife — without killing them. Not only was violence not used in disarming the man but the exact opposite — love.

In video after video after video, we see police needlessly escalate situations to deadly force prior to attempting any heroic action, or even less lethal action, or simply backing up when confronted with people holding knives.

Mentally ill individuals have a 1,600% higher chance of being killed by police than anyone else, regardless of race. All too often, we see good people, who are in need of medical help - gunned down by officers because they 'fear for their lives' due to a complete lack of training in dealing with the mentally ill.

Gas canister with 'ignition device' found at McDonald's in Berlin, Germany

RT
Fri, 30 Jun 2017 08:25 UTC

McDonald's customers hoping to treat themselves to an Egg McMuffin were instead startled to find a gas canister at the fast food chain. The restaurant was evacuated following the discovery, which police say likely contained an "ignition device."

Customers found the gas canister at a McDonald's in Berlin's Kreuzberg neighborhood at around 9am local time on Thursday. It was connected to a cable.

Customers were quickly evacuated while explosives experts were called in to examine the device.

Two hours later, at around 11am, police tweeted that specialists had disarmed the device. Fire services also ventilated the restaurant "due to the high concentration of gas there."

Man arrested after trying to drive car into crowd near French mosque

RT
Fri, 30 Jun 2017 14:04 UTC

A man was arrested after attempting to drive a car into people in front of a mosque in the Paris suburb of Creteil, police said in a statement. No one was injured in the incident, and the suspect was detained.

The man did not succeed in driving his 4x4 vehicle into the crowd due to barriers erected in front of the mosque, according to police. The motives of the suspect remain unclear so far.

The suspect's car "repeatedly struck the blocks and barriers placed to protect the mosque," but to no avail, the police said in their statement.

Under new German law, social networks could be hit with hefty fines for 'hate speech'

RT
Thu, 29 Jun 2017 21:27 UTC

Germany may tighten up its laws on online hate speech in a move that opponents decry as at odds with free speech.

Under the Social Networks Enforcement Law, which goes before parliament on Friday, social networks with over 2 million users must have a system for reporting so-called "hate speech," which - depending on its severity - must be removed within a week. "Clearly illegal" content must be removed within 24 hours.

These complaints may be processed by a neutral third party approved by the Justice Ministry. Companies which consistently fail to remove content in time could be hit with a 50 million euro ($56 million) fine, according to AP.

The bill, proposed in in March by Justice Minister Heiko Maas of the center-left Social Democratic Party, has been prompted by a sharp rise in anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim rhetoric online as a result of the ongoing migrant crisis and terror attacks in Europe. Maas and supporters of his bill link these online commentaries to hate crimes and other far-right activity.

Alleged 'Russian hackers' wanted to transmit Clinton's emails to Flynn via intermediary

Sputnik
Fri, 30 Jun 2017 14:02 UTC

The hackers who might have obtained deleted emails of then-Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, allegedly looked for an intermediary to transmit the emails to former US President Donald Trump's National Security Adviser Michael Flynn during the US presidential campaign last year, media reported.

According to The Wall Street Journal's Thursday report, the intermediary might have been Republican party member Peter Smith, who launched an investigation in 2016 to find Clinton's deleted emails and who reportedly had contacts with Flynn.

In 2014, when asked to turn over her emails for the investigation into the 2012 Benghazi attack on the US embassy, Clinton submitted about 30,000 emails and deleted the rest of them, claiming they were personal. She had also repeatedly stated that there were no classified emails on her server, a claim which the FBI investigation later proved to be untrue.

Another dupe?: Ohio man charged and pleads guilty to joining and providing support for Al-Qaeda in Syria

RT
Thu, 29 Jun 2017 19:41 UTC

A Somali-born resident of Columbus, Ohio, has admitted to training and fighting alongside the Al-Nusra Front, an Al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria. He also admitted to planning an attack in the US upon his return from Syria.

Abdirahman Sheik Mohamud, 25, is a Somali-born naturalized citizen of the US. In 2014, he traveled to Turkey where he crossed the border into Syria, court documents show.

While in Syria, Mohamud received training from the Al-Nusra Front, a terrorist organization affiliated with Al-Qaeda, prosecutors said.

"After returning to the US, Mohamud planned to obtain weapons in order to kill military officers or other government employees or people in uniform. Evidence seized by the FBI indicates that Mohamud researched places in the US to carry out such plans," the Justice Department said in a statement.

Comment: One wonders how much Mohamud was "encouraged" by the FBI and/or other US intel agencies to become a Jihadi - like so many other hapless dupes before him.

American tennis star Venus Williams involved in fatal car crash in Florida

RT
Fri, 30 Jun 2017 11:46 UTC

American tennis star Venus Williams was involved in a car crash which resulted in the death of an elderly passenger in another vehicle in Florida.

According to a report released on Thursday by local police in Palm Beach Gardens, Williams ran a red light in her 2010 Toyota Sequoia SUV, causing a June 9 crash that injured 78-year-old Jerome Barson, who died two weeks later, as reported by AP.

It's known that Barson was in a car being driven by his wife, Linda, who suffered unspecified moderate injuries.

A fight for equality? No, it's a plot to wipe out marriage

Peter Hitchens
Mail on Sunday, UK
Sun, 26 Feb 2017 09:56 UTC

© Press Association
Rebecca Steinfeld and Charles Keidan outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, after they lost their latest battle for the right to enter into a civil partnership this week

The campaign to get rid of marriage has not gone away. Civil partnerships for heterosexuals were not thrown out by the Appeal Court last week, only put off till later. They will come.

In fact, after 20 years of New Labour government (some of it nominally Tory) we can now look back and survey the smoking ruins of marriage. It's not that the New Labour radicals and their Tory imitators wrecked marriage on their own. It's just that they have more or less finished it off.

The very words 'husband' and 'wife' have been erased from official forms and even from normal conversation. We all have partners now, whether we want to or not.

Divorce figures have fallen only because so many couples don't get married in the first place. The marriage statistics show that more and more people simply aren't bothering to make any sort of legal commitment at all before setting up home and starting a family.

Comment: Hitchens has spoken elsewhere about this in the context of the recent gay marriage revolution. While he initially came down against it, he later regretted doing so because, as he said, marriage rights extended to a relative handful of people missed the larger issue of decades-long 'hollowing-out' of the institution or tradition itself, in the UK as elsewhere in the West.

Is this freedom to break bonds and start over a good thing for society? Everyone surely knows individual cases where it has been good for all the people involved, including the children, but alongside those are all-too-negative long-term results for society as a whole; the broken homes, the single mothers, the lonely fathers, the scarred or wayward children...

Have we gone too far and made it too easy for people to change their minds on a whim? Perhaps people should be encouraged think seriously about the idea of 'till death do us part' and enter into marriage only after they have done so.

Grenfell inferno survivors barred from Kensington council meeting, 'risk of disruption'

RT
Thu, 29 Jun 2017 02:20 UTC

Grenfell Tower fire survivors have been banned from attending the first meeting of senior local councillors since the tragedy - because there is a "risk of disruption."

The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea cabinet is meeting privately on Thursday, where its controversial Conservative leader, Nicholas Paget-Brown, will lead the council's business.

Residents were told the meeting was held behind closed doors because of "security and public safety concerns" following the storming of the Town Hall a fortnight ago. Protesters occupied the council building on the Friday following the tragedy in anger at the council's response.

Comment: The cover-up has begun.

I said from the start of this in March 2020 it was obvious adverse mental and associated poor health would far outweigh any lockdown measures...

Kevin Smith

All of us with working brain cells predicted this. And, still, nothing changes.

ReRan

At least the WHO, stopped their concert immediately, when that tragedy happened in Cincinnati. This, on the other hand is reprehensible.

JTF Truth

Designer Federica Cavenati, who was known to friends as Kikka, has very sadly passed away, aged just 28, after a short and sudden illness Another...

HashAttack2

Assange took refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy in 2012 to avoid extradition to the USA via Sweden where he faced sex offence allegations for which...

JTF Truth

Society's Child

New York jury finds Iran-linked office tower can be seized by US govt

Hero cop in Bangkok prevents knife attack with compassion and a hug — not violence

Gas canister with 'ignition device' found at McDonald's in Berlin, Germany

Man arrested after trying to drive car into crowd near French mosque

Under new German law, social networks could be hit with hefty fines for 'hate speech'

Alleged 'Russian hackers' wanted to transmit Clinton's emails to Flynn via intermediary

Another dupe?: Ohio man charged and pleads guilty to joining and providing support for Al-Qaeda in Syria

American tennis star Venus Williams involved in fatal car crash in Florida

A fight for equality? No, it's a plot to wipe out marriage

Grenfell inferno survivors barred from Kensington council meeting, 'risk of disruption'

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