Society's ChildS


Bad Guys

Hong Kong police handed power to do warrantless searches, freeze assets, intercept comms, control internet - WhatsApp, Telegram refuse to share data

Kelly Ho
Hong Kong Free Press
Mon, 06 Jul 2020 15:40 UTC
hong kong police
© Kevin Cheng/United Social PressPeople detained by police on July 1, 2020.
Hong Kong police will be authorised to conduct searches at private properties without a warrant, restrict suspects' movements, freeze their assets, intercept communications and require internet service providers to remove information, as the city's leader handed more powers to the force for implementing the new national security law.

On Monday night, the government gazetted the details of Article 43 of the controversial legislation, which criminalises secession, subversion, terrorism and foreign interference. It came after the first meeting of the Committee for Safeguarding National Security of the HKSAR, chaired by Chief Executive Carrie Lam.

According to the latest legal document, an officer of - or above - the rank of assistant commissioner can authorise officers to enter premises without a warrant under "urgent" situations to search for evidence. Police can also apply for a warrant to demand suspected violators of the national security law to surrender their travel documents to restrict them from leaving the territory.

The secretary for security may issue a written notice to freeze assets if they have "reasonable grounds" to suspect the property is related to an offence endangering national security. Additionally, the secretary for justice may apply for a restraining order or charging order to the Court of First Instance in order to confiscate or forfeit such property.

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Ambulance

Best of the Web: Cost of coronavirus lockdown in the 2nd quarter: 400 million jobs worldwide, 70 million in US - UN labor agency

Vicky McKeever
CNBC
Tue, 30 Jun 2020 00:00 UTC
  • Global working hours are expected to have fallen by 14% in the second quarter of 2020, according to ILO estimates.
  • This is the equivalent of 400 million full-time jobs.
  • It marks a "sharp increase" on the 10.7% fall in working hours it previously estimated for the quarter.
Laid off woman
© JGI/Tom Grill
The coronavirus pandemic is expected to have resulted in a 14% drop in global working hours in the second quarter of 2020, the International Labour Organization has said.

The United Nations' labor agency said this updated fall in working hours was the equivalent of 400 million full-time job losses globally in the second quarter, based on a standard 48-hour working week.

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Arrow Down

Dr. Simone Gold: On masks 'we do not consent'

Dr. Simone Gold
21st Century Wire
Fri, 03 Jul 2020 00:00 UTC
covid mask
© unknown
Author's note: The below is the Op-Ed that was accepted to USAToday on June 24. They deleted key phrases/paragraphs for their print paper and then they refused to print it at all online.
It is clear to me as a physician-lawyer that the disinformation about both Covid-19 and the Constitution has caused us to turn a medical issue into a legal crisis.

The scientific usefulness of a mask has been so aggressively overstated, and the foundational importance of the Constitution has been so aggressively understated, that we have normalized people screaming obscenities at each other while hiking.

The Covid virus was supposed to be contained in the kind of lab where people wear astronaut suits and go through triple sealed doors. It is a con of massive proportion to assert that now, having escaped those environs, a bandana will magically do the trick.

After all, size matters.

The pore size of cloth face coverings range from ~ 20-100 microns. The Covid virus is 200-1000x smaller than that, at 0.1 microns. Putting up a chain link fence will not keep out a mosquito. Even the most esteemed medical journals admit their purpose is to calm anxiety. "Expanded masking protocols' greatest contribution may be to reduce the transmission of anxiety ..."

Of course, by knowledge or common sense observation, most Americans already know that masking everyone is superstition. But unlike privately carrying a lucky charm, mandating facial coverings requires the consent of the governed.
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Health

In Gaza, families plead for help after two infants die awaiting permits for medical treatment in Israel

Tareq S. Hajjaj
Mondoweiss
Fri, 03 Jul 2020 00:01 UTC
Omar Yaghi
© Mohammed SalemJehad Yaghi holds up an image of his grandson, nine-month-old Omar Yaghi who died last week in Gaza after the Palestinian Authority froze exit permits for Palestinians seeking medical treatment in Israel and the West Bank.
Two infants have died in the Gaza Strip awaiting permits for medical treatment in Israel, a tragedy that Palestinians anxiously fear could expand in the coming weeks. Permits for Gaza's sickest patients to receive treatment in Israel and the West Bank ended abruptly on May 19 when Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas announced an end to coordination with Israel. It was a protest move against Israel's plans to annex parts of the West Bank in July.

The first child died last week, nine-month-old Omar Yaghi who awaited permission to exit Gaza for surgery for a cardiac abnormality. On Monday, Anwar Harb died nine days after his birth, also from a cardiac disease.

On Wednesday the United Nations Special Envoy to the Middle East Nikolay Mladenov said both Israel and the Palestinian Authority were responsible for "the ending of civilian coordination" and Omar Yaghi's death.

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Info

JK Rowling says she got 'death & rape threats'... but doubles down on transgender position


RT
Sun, 05 Jul 2020 20:53 UTC
J.K. Rowling
© REUTERS/Carlo AllegriJK Rowling poses for a portrait while publicizing her adult fiction book 'The Casual Vacancy' at Lincoln Center in New York.
Criticism of 'Harry Potter' author JK Rowling's views on the transgender movement has spilled over into "death and rape threats," but she has responded to it with even greater vehemence, sparking fresh outrage on social media.

"I've ignored fake tweets attributed to me and RTed widely. I've ignored porn tweeted at children on a thread about their art. I've ignored death and rape threats. I'm not going to ignore this," Rowling tweeted on Sunday, in response to a tweet accusing her of calling people who take medication "lazy."


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Attention

Anti-racist? Frederick Douglass statue in New York removed from base and damaged

Carlin Becker
Washington Examiner
Sun, 05 Jul 2020 19:58 UTC
frederick douglass statue
A statue depicting abolitionist Frederick Douglass in Rochester, New York, was damaged after it was removed from its base.

The statue in Maplewood Park was toppled from its base over the weekend and left near the Genesee River gorge. It was found around 50 feet from its pedestal and "had been placed over the fence to the gorge and was leaning against the fence."

Both the base and lower part of the statue were damaged as well as a finger on its left hand. According to police, there was no sign of graffiti on the statue, which is now getting repaired, or in the park.

Comment: There is no 'why' in this act. It doesn't fit the ideology of BLM or any who seek reform or justice, as misguided as they may be. It just goes to show that this 'movement' isn't a movement or even an ideology. It's just people who want to watch the world burn.

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NPC

Baltimore protesters go haywire as they knock down Columbus statue & dump it in water


RT
Sun, 05 Jul 2020 21:32 UTC
Christopher Columbus statue baltimore maryland
© AgnosticPreachersKid/WikipediaThe Christopher Columbus Monument that once stood in the Harbor East neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland.
A Christopher Columbus statue in Baltimore, Maryland has been toppled by a group of people, who used ropes to tear it down before tossing it into the water. The mayor's office said it stands with the protesters.

Videos show a large group of demonstrators pulling down the Christopher Columbus statue near the Little Italy neighborhood in Baltimore on Saturday night.

Vandals used ropes to knock the monument from its pedestal, which eventually came crashing down to the loud cheers and applause from the gathered crowd. Police were a no-show at the spectacle.

Comment: From the Baltimore Sun:
Del. Kathy Szeliga called watching the video of the Columbus monument's destruction "heartbreaking."

She was among elected officials and Italian-Americans who gathered at the statue late last month to urge city and state leaders to protect the statue, fearing it would be destroyed.

Szeliga, a Republican who represents Harford and Baltimore counties, said she understands that people have differing views on Columbus. She had hoped there could be a public discussion about the statue's fate, such as whether to move it. Instead, she accused Young and city leaders of purposefully ignoring the threats to the statue and tacitly approving its destruction.

"They turned a blind eye while mobs tore down this statute," Szeliga said.

Del. Nino Mangione, a Baltimore County Republican of Italian ancestry, said his phone lit up with text messages about the statue Saturday night.

"I am just sick and tired of Baltimore really looking like it's some third-rate horror movie because of the absolute inaction of an irresponsible few in leadership," Mangione said. "I just couldn't believe watching that video. It really disgraces all of Baltimore."
Listen to the shreiks of mindless glee in the first tweet. The barbarians are well inside the gate. Good luck to their enablers when the mob turns on them.

Portland protesters barricade streets and declare new 'autonomous zone' outside mayor's residence

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People 2

"Slums of the future" expected following England's radical property reforms

Tom Wall
The Guardian
Sun, 05 Jul 2020 07:15 UTC
bojo
© ReutersBoris Johnson lays a brick during a visit to a Barratt Homes development in Bedford, last November. The prime minister has backed plans to allow buildings to be repurposed without full planning permission.
Thousands of tiny, substandard "rabbit-hutch" flats could be created in commercial buildings left empty by the coronavirus economic slowdown under planning reforms championed by Boris Johnson.

University College London professor Ben Clifford - who recently completed a government review of housing produced outside the conventional planning system - said allowing developers to turn a wider range of commercial properties into flats without planning checks could lead to a wave of substandard conversions.

"Unless there are proper safeguards, we could see even more poor-quality, tiny flats being crammed into commercial buildings lacking amenities and green space," he said. "These could be what others have rightly called the slums of the future."

Comment: As an example of what's considered acceptable housing for a family in Britain these days:



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Quenelle - Golden

Best of the Web: Trump claims media is reporting high Covid-19 numbers to misinform people about mortality rate


RT
Sat, 04 Jul 2020 21:14 UTC

Comment: Trump, by the way, grokked this from the beginning. But like all world leaders, he apparently had to go do whatever they told him to, or else...


Covid testing
© Reuters/David Ryder.People get tested for Covid-19 in Seattle, Washington
President Donald Trump has tweeted that the high number of Covid-19 cases in the US is actually a good thing as it is due to expanded testing, but the "fake news media" refuses to cover the shrinking mortality rate.

"Cases, Cases, Cases! If we didn't test so much and so successfully, we would have very few cases. If you test 40,000,000 people, you are going to have many cases that, without the testing (like other countries), would not show up every night on the Fake Evening News," the president tweeted on Saturday.

He continued, "In a certain way, our tremendous Testing success gives the Fake News Media all they want, CASES. In the meantime, Deaths and the all important Mortality Rate goes down. You don't hear about that from the Fake News, and you never will. Anybody need any Ventilators???"
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Fire

Latest incident: Transformer explosion triggers a fire at Iran's Zargan power station


RT
Sat, 04 Jul 2020 18:11 UTC
Iranian power station blaze
© Twitter/MohamadAhwazeIranian power station blaze
A large blaze has erupted at a power station in southwest Iran, causing brief electricity outages in the area. The incident is the latest in the string of mishaps at strategic facilities across the country.

The fire broke out on Saturday at the Zargan plant, located in the city of Ahvaz. Footage from the scene, which has been circulating online, shows a large column of black smoke coming from the facility.


A fire department official told local media that the blaze was caused by a transformer, which exploded after overheating. The fire was promptly contained by firefighters, limiting damage to the facility.

Comment: There seems to be unusually close timing for a cluster of similar incidents, all of which could be as indicated...or something more? Benny Gantz weighs in:
Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz has hinted that recent explosions, which took place in Iran over the last few weeks, might not be related to Israel's activities. While he acknowledged that Tel Aviv does undertake some efforts against the Islamic Republic, not everything bad that happens in Iran is necessarily the result of Israel's actions, the official stressed.

"A nuclear Iran is a threat to the world and the region, as well as a threat to Israel. And we will do everything to prevent that from happening [...] Everyone can be suspicious of us all the time. But not every event that happens in Iran is connected to us."

At the same time, the defence minister refused to "refer to any individual event" in his speech, only saying that Israel will do anything in its power to "prevent Iran from spreading terror".
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