Society's ChildS


Stop

City tells church it will lose religious designation because it shelters homeless people

John Vibes
The Mind Unleashed
Thu, 26 Dec 2019 16:53 UTC
Denison Avenue United Church of Christ
The order from the city of Cleveland was posted on the door of the church on Christmas Eve.

Earlier this week, on Christmas Eve, an order from the city of Cleveland was posted on the door of the Denison Avenue United Church of Christ, demanding that they kick out the homeless people that they had been allowing to sleep on their property or face losing their status with the city as a religious organization.

The order came from the Cleveland Division of Fire, citing code violations that they claim are dangerous for the inhabitants. The city is following the letter of the law, in this case, suggesting that it is illegal to change the official use of the building without first filling out the required paperwork and making significant changes to the property.

According to the city's building department, for the church to give shelter to homeless people, they would need to go through a costly process of not only updating the building but also getting the required permits and licenses that would designate the building as a homeless shelter.

Comment: You'd think the city's administration would at least attempt to materially help the church so that homeless people could continue to have a roof over their heads, and the church can continue being a church.

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Eye 2

Boy, 10, is forced to take his shirt off before boarding a flight because it had a picture of a snake on it

Nic White
Daily Mail
Wed, 25 Dec 2019 23:47 UTC
boy snake shirt
Stevie Lucas was on a family trip from New Zealand to South Africa to visit his grandparents when security officers said he couldn't board with this t-shirt on
A family claims their 10-year-old son was forced to change his t-shirt before boarding a flight because it had a snake on it.

Stevie Lucas was on a family trip from New Zealand to South Africa to visit his grandparents on December 17.

His parents Steve and Marga said security officers at Johannesburg airport told them snake toys and printed clothing was not allowed on board.

The stated reason was that it could, in their determination, harm passengers or crew by causing anxiety, according to local media.

Ms Lucas told her son to turn his black t-shirt, which has a large green snake coming from over the shoulder, inside out to avoid any further drama.

Airport security footage showed Stevie taking off his shirt at security and putting it back on after turning it inside out.

Comment: See also:

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HAL9000

It seemed like a popular chat app. It's secretly a spy tool

Mark Mazzetti, Nicole Perlroth and Ronen Bergman
The New York Times
Mon, 23 Dec 2019 12:58 UTC
Aldar Properties
© Aldar-Sorough/ReutersPeople walk past the headquarters of Aldar Properties at Al Raha Beach in Abu Dhabi, January 28, 2013.
It is billed as an easy and secure way to chat by video or text message with friends and family, even in a country that has restricted popular messaging services like WhatsApp and Skype.

But the service, ToTok, is actually a spying tool, according to U.S. officials familiar with a classified intelligence assessment and a New York Times investigation into the app and its developers. It is used by the government of the United Arab Emirates to try to track every conversation, movement, relationship, appointment, sound and image of those who install it on their phones.

ToTok, introduced only months ago, was downloaded millions of times from the Apple and Google app stores by users throughout the Middle East, Europe, Asia, Africa and North America. While the majority of its users are in the Emirates, ToTok surged to become one of the most downloaded social apps in the U.S. last week, according to app rankings and App Annie, a research firm.

ToTok amounts to the latest escalation in a digital arms race among wealthy authoritarian governments, interviews with current and former U.S. foreign officials and a forensic investigation showed. The governments are pursuing more effective and convenient methods to spy on foreign adversaries, criminal and terrorist networks, journalists and critics — efforts that have ensnared people all over the world in their surveillance nets.

Comment: See also:

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No Entry

Constitutional Court ruling: Turkey's Wikipedia ban violates freedom of speech


Sputnik
Thu, 26 Dec 2019 18:25 UTC
Wikipedia office
© AP/Eric RisbergWikipedia Foundation, San Francisco
According to the Turkish newspaper Daily Sabah, six out of ten adjudicators who reviewed the case stated the ban on Wikipedia, initially imposed on 29 April 2017, violated citizens' rights to freedom of expression. Wikipedia's parent organisation, the Wikimedia Foundation, brought the case to the Constitutional Court.

Turkey's government-imposed ban on access to online encyclopedia Wikipedia violates citizens' right to freedom of expression, the Constitutional Court ruled on Thursday, as reported by media.

In May, Wikimedia brought their case against the Turkish ban to the European Court of Human Rights. According to Wikimedia, the encyclopedia's refusal to remove two articles - about the Syrian war and state-sponsored terrorism - prompted Ankara to block all access to Wikipedia.
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Attention

French pension strikers march into fourth week of protests, nearly shutting down railway travel


RT
Thu, 26 Dec 2019 19:32 UTC
France protest pension reform
© AFP / STEPHANE DE SAKUTINA demonstration in front of Gare de l'Est train station in Paris on December 26, 2019.
French workers objecting to President Macron's pension reforms are marching in Paris again. The strike that disrupted Christmas travel plans and cost hundreds of millions has now reached its fourth week.

Thousands of people flooded the streets of Paris on Thursday in their latest march against the proposed reform that seeks to merge the current 42 pension schemes into one. The proposal was rejected by unions and workers in many professions as it strips early retirement options for doing physically demanding or hazardous jobs.

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Snakes in Suits

Harvey Weinstein loses bid to toss sex trafficking claim

Gene Maddaus
Variety
Thu, 19 Dec 2019 19:44 UTC
harvey wienstein
© CRAIG RUTTLE/AP/SHUTTERSTOCK
A federal judge on Thursday denied Harvey Weinstein's motion to dismiss a sex trafficking claim filed by a woman who alleges she was raped by the producer.

Wedil David first filed suit against Weinstein in state court in November 2017, under the name Jane Doe. The case has since moved to federal court, and in May, David's attorneys amended the complaint to include a claim of sex trafficking.

According to David's suit, Weinstein told her that he was considering her for a role in the show "Marco Polo," and used that as a lure to get her to come to his room at the Montage Hotel in early 2016.

Several Weinstein accusers have accused Weinstein of violating the federal sex trafficking statute, by effectively offering to exchange movie roles for sex. Weinstein's attorneys have sought to throw those charges out, claiming that scenario is not what Congress had in mind when it wrote the statute.

But several judges have now allowed the claim to proceed, finding that the plaintiffs have plausibly alleged that Weinstein was engaged in "commercial sex acts." Judge Robert W. Sweet, who died in March, wrote a ruling in August 2018 in which he held that a meeting with Weinstein could be considered a "thing of value" under the statute.
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Star of David

Zionist NYT shill Bari Weiss says Jews should stop giving money to Harvard and Columbia because of 'antisemitic' professors

Philip Weiss
Mondoweis
Thu, 26 Dec 2019 19:01 UTC
Bari Weiss
© ScreenshotBari Weiss at JCC on December 5, 2019.
New York Times opinion editor Bari Weiss has become a star advocate for Israel, and at a recent appearance she made three important points.

1, The way to fight anti-Zionism on college campuses is for older Jews to stop giving money to prestige institutions like Harvard and Columbia and George Washington University because they employ "antisemitic" professors. 2, The young Jewishly-educated Jews of IfNotNow are worrisome because they are "being used" by anti-Zionists. 3, Jews are only safe walking around the West Village because Israel exists, and they're "insane" if they don't recognize this.

Comment: It is unfortunate that people like Weiss and Goldberg have such powerful platforms to spread their toxic politics.

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Briefcase

Huawei says it receives policy support from Chinese government like any other private company, but no special treatment

Li Tao
South China Morning Post
Thu, 26 Dec 2019 17:02 UTC

Comment: That Huawei is even having to defend itself from this 'accusation' is utterly absurd. As if Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft - the whole 'Silicon Valley' enterprise in fact - isn't the recipient of US govt largesse!

And that was just to get them started: today they STILL PAY NO TAXES!


huawei
© AFP / Mohd Rasfan
Huawei Technologies said on Thursday that its relationship with the Chinese government was "no different" from any other private company operating in China, after a report estimated it had received US$75 billion of state support that helped it grow into the leading 5G network gear supplier it is today.

"Like other tech companies that operate in China, including those from abroad, Huawei receives some policy support from the Chinese government," Karl Song, vice-president of the company's corporate communications department, said in a statement. "But we have never received any additional or special treatment."

The company was responding to a report published by The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday that said the Chinese government promoted Huawei's global rise with as much as US$75 billion in grants, credit facilities, tax breaks and other financial assistance.

According to the Journal, Chinese government assistance helped the Shenzhen-based company grow from a little-known vendor of phone switches to the world's largest telecommunications equipment supplier, allowing it to offer generous financing terms and undercut rivals' prices by some 30 per cent.
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Network

Damascus signs contract to develop offshore oil wells with Russian firms

Tim Korso
Sputnik
Thu, 26 Dec 2019 18:31 UTC
offshore oil well
© Sputnik / Alexey Danichev
The Syrian government lost control over the majority of its inland oil fields as result of the civil war, which started back in 2011. While eventually recapturing some of them, a significant portion of the oil fields remain in the hands of the US military, which is illegally deployed in the country, and their local Kurdish allies.

Syrian Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Ali Ghanem said that the country has signed contracts with two Russian companies to jointly develop two blocks of Syria's offshore oilfields. The contracts still have to be ratified before the drilling can commence in the future.
"In fact, there is a company that has signed a previous contract on the matter of one of the maritime blocks' exploration, Block 2, and there is also another agreement with a Russian company for Block 1", the minister said.
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Bullseye

Afghan presidential hopeful Hekmatyar: Peace impossible in presence of foreign troops


Sputnik
Thu, 26 Dec 2019 18:28 UTC
afghan soldiers
© AP Photo / Massoud Hossaini
Peace cannot come to Afghanistan until foreign troops leave the country, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a presidential candidate in the recent Afghan election, said on Thursday, calling for a national unity government that would negotiate the withdrawal of such forces.
"Peace is not possible in the presence of foreign forces; foreigners have not achieved anything in the war in Afghanistan. We want them to let us make decisions by ourselves", Hekmatyar said at a meeting with the Wahdat-e-Islami party.
He then scolded the incumbent government, calling it another obstacle to peace.
"There will be no peace in the presence of the present government. This government is the main cause of the war. All political parties must reach an agreement on the withdrawal of foreign forces from the country", he added.
According to Hekmatyar, a new government should be formed of all political parties to steer the country toward a transparent election.
"We are aware that the biometric system of the 2,400 polling places consisting of around 400,000 votes was destroyed by the state-building team [of the incumbent president]. This election was full of frauds and the [election] commissions are not independent", he said.
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