Society's ChildS


Snakes in Suits

Sympathy ploy? Harvey Weinstein uses walker at criminal court hearing

Ashley Cullins
The Hollywood Reporter
Mon, 16 Dec 2019 18:13 UTC
Legal experts say it's not unheard of for a defendant to use a physical ailment to garner leniency, but the embattled mogul's team maintains his condition is tied to an August car crash and they don't need sympathy to win.
harvey weinstein health criminal court
© Jeenah Moon/Getty ImagesHarvey Weinstein leaving criminal court after a bail hearing on Dec. 11 in New York City.
Lots of 67-year-old men have back issues — about 80 percent of them, in fact — but when Harvey Weinstein used a walker to enter a Manhattan courtroom for his bail hearing on December 11 it sparked pervasive speculation that he was faking it.

"This shows everything is going to be under a microscope," former prosecutor Laurie Levenson says of Weinstein's upcoming sexual assault trial. "The very nature of this crime raises questions about whether anything he says or does will be believed."

Weinstein's lawyer, Donna Rotunno, tells The Hollywood Reporter that his health has been deteriorating since an August car crash. "As the pain got worse and the various different courses of treatment failed to remedy the problem, he began to rely on a cane and a walker," she says. "Friday [December 6], he did not want to appear in court using the assistance of those, for fear of exactly what some media turned it into, so we told him to just use the walker on Wednesday."

Rotunno adds that Weinstein hoped the spinal decompression surgery he had on December 12 would end the discussion — but hours after the procedure Page Six still published photos of the producer at Target with the headline: "Harvey Weinstein spotted without his walker: Is he only using one for sympathy?"

His reps tell THR the photos were taken more than two months ago, and Weinstein on Friday gave the paper an interview from his hospital room in an effort to squash its skepticism.

Comment: While Mr. Weinstein may very well have health issues, sociopaths will play any card necessary to avoid taking responsibility for their actions.

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Che Guevara

As support for immigration wanes, Germany's migrant-smuggling activist switches to 'saving the planet', calls for civil disobedience

Graham Dockery
RT
Mon, 16 Dec 2019 16:43 UTC
Carola Rackete smuggling activist
A criminal investigation for smuggling hasn’t deterred Rackete. Instead she’s hopped on a new bandwagon: saving the planet.
Sea captain Carola Rackete broke the law to pull migrants out of the Mediterranean and bring them to Italy. However, support for immigration in Europe is falling, and the outlaw activist has embraced a new cause: the environment.

The line between 'activist' and 'criminal' is often a blurry one, and 31-year-old Carola Rackete has one foot to either side of it. A former conservation volunteer and officer on Greenpeace ships, the German activist took over the helm of the 'Sea-Watch 3' in June. A month later, she was arrested in Italy for docking on the island of Lampedusa with 53 migrants in tow.

The Italian government had closed its ports to migrant ships in June, and the Dutch government - whose flag the Sea Watch 3 sailed under - described her organization as "not a rescue service but a ferry service." Rackete was honored by left-wing politicians across Europe, but is being investigated for aiding human trafficking, as her ship would regularly sail just kilometers off the Libyan coast, ferrying migrants on the last leg of their trip to Europe.

Comment: One wonders what new radical cause Ms. Rackete will embrace once she realizes that people are equally irritated at the antics of Eco-warriors that do nothing but cause havoc and disrupt the lives of those who actually have jobs and families to support?

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Family

Lawsuit: Paternity test falsely ID'd Baltimore man as father


ABC News
Mon, 16 Dec 2019 05:45 UTC
DNA test
A Baltimore man is suing over a take-home paternity test he says incorrectly indicated he was the father of a 1-year-old girl.

Nnanaka Nwofor wants the Ohio company that conducted the DNA test to pay $75,000 for the cost of supporting the child and her mother and the pain of learning he wasn't the father, The Daily Record reports.

"He's filled with sorrow about it, and it took a long time to tell his family that he wasn't the father, because his family bonded with the child too," Nwofor's attorney, Charles Edwards, said. "When a family goes all in and bonded to the child like he did and finds this out, it's devastating."
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Attention

Beirut: Dozens injured in street battles between protesters and police


RT
Mon, 16 Dec 2019 11:21 UTC
Anti-government protesters
© AP/Hussein MallaAnti-government protesters clash with the riot police, during a protest near the parliament square, in downtown Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, Dec. 15, 2019.
Dozens of people were injured and hospitalized in Beirut during street battles between thousands of anti-government protesters and armed police amid a worsening political and economic crisis in Lebanon.

Protesters hurled debris, bottles and fireworks while police used tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannon to disperse the crowds on a second night of unrest in the capital this past weekend.

Authorities said that over 40 people were hospitalized following the clashes and more than 100 others were treated for their injuries by the Civil Defense and the Red Cross.

Dozens more were injured during clashes on Saturday as riot police faced off against thousands of demonstrators across Beirut, amid unrest fueled by frustration at governmental failures, inaction and punitive proposed remedies, such as taxing WhatsApp calls.


Comment: Protests reach new levels in Beirut:




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Bad Guys

The virtue of telling the truth

Peter Hitchins
First Things
Fri, 13 Dec 2019 19:07 UTC
destruction syria allies missile strike
© Fathi Nizam via Creative Commons.Buildings destroyed by allied missile strikes in Syria, 14 April 2018
I am currently being accused of serving as an apologist for Bashar al-Assad, one of the most gruesome tyrants in the world. I am also being attacked on social media as a "war crimes denier" and a tool of the Russian Kremlin.

This is because I have done my job as a reporter. I have obtained documents and spoken to confidential sources, who have told me that the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), a major U.N. arms control verification body, suppressed evidence so as to excuse an act of war by the USA, Britain, and France. In April 2018, unconfirmed reports and videos appeared to indicate that Syria had used poison gas in the town of Douma. The three western countries assumed the claims of gas use were true, and showered missiles on Syria without waiting for the evidence. According to my sources, an OPCW inspectors' report failed to back up claims that Syria had used poison gas in Douma in April. But the OPCW severely redacted this report before publication in July 2018, to give a wholly different impression.
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Light Saber

Malmo gang task force to spread to other cities as criminals become more ruthless, says Swedish police chief


RT
Mon, 16 Dec 2019 17:07 UTC
Gang violence
© REUTERS/TT News Agency/Johan NIlssonFile photo from Ribersborg, Malmo, Sweden on August 26, 2019
A special task force introduced in Malmo, Sweden to tackle rising gang violence will be expanded into other cities, the police chief has said, warning that gang members are becoming more ruthlessly violent.

Sweden is suffering a jump in gang-related shootings and bombings; bomb attacks reached a new high in 2019 with over 180 incidents to date. An explosion in Linkoping, southern Sweden injured 20 people in June, while almost 30 blasts have been recorded in Malmo alone this year.

The 'Operation Hoarfrost' task force was introduced in Malmo in November after a 15-year-old was shot dead in what police suspect was part of a drug gang turf war. In June 2018, six men were shot at a Malmo internet cafe in a drive-by gang-related attack; three of the victims died in hospital.

About 40 suspects have been arrested for a range of crimes since Operation Hoarfrost got underway.
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Attention

The Great Replacement in Belgium

Guillaume Durocher
The Unz Review
Sat, 14 Dec 2019 18:03 UTC
belgian immigration
The following is a translation of an article by the lawyer Paul Tormenen for the identitarian think-tank Polémia. The numerous sources cited are detailed in the original article. This piece provides a solid overview of the tremendous demographic transformation which Belgium is undergoing and of the striking differences between European and Islamic migrants, the latter being markedly socially conservative and prone to unemployment. Entire neighborhoods such as Molenbeek have become unrecognizable and begging Gypsies have become a familiar sight on street corners.

At the same time, the numbers show that, as of today, a majority of immigrants to Belgium are of European origin and can be expected to integrate smoothly. Even if we concede that the Europeans are likely less fertile than the Muslims and Africans, this is one reason why I do not believe "race war" is likely to happen any time soon, notwithstanding the reality of Afro-Islamic criminality and periodic murderous Islamist terrorist attacks.
If Belgium experienced waves of immigration in the 20th Century, the current wave is unique in its magnitude and the fact that it is "endured" by a part of the population. The ethnocentric demands and the radicalization of a fraction of the immigrant population has provoked differing reactions among the [French-speaking] Walloons and the [Dutch-speaking] Flemish. In Belgium, as in other European countries, the migratory and identitarian questions have become central to the country's political life.

Comment: See also:

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Whistle

Soccer star Mesut Özil under fire in China for criticizing Muslim detention camps

Linda Givetash
NBC News
Sun, 15 Dec 2019 17:37 UTC
Mesut Ozil
© Daniel Leal-Olivas / AFP - Getty ImagesGerman midfielder Mesut Ozil of the London soccer club Arsenal.
China's approach to human rights and its relationship with global sports were once again in the spotlight this weekend after a soccer star criticized the country's treatment of its Uighur Muslim minority.

Mesut Özil, a prominent player for English soccer club Arsenal, denounced China's policies toward its Muslim residents in a post on Twitter and Instagram on Friday. He was met by criticism online in China and a decision from Chinese TV not to broadcast Sunday's marquee game involving the club.

The controversy comes months after the NBA faced a sustained backlash after Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey expressed apparent support for protests in Hong Kong.

The high-profile incident developed into a crisis for the league.

Now soccer may have to confront the same questions. An estimated 1 million people have been detained in China's network of Muslim internment centers across the western province of Xinjiang.


Comment: Most likely an inflated estimate, but the total lack of transparency from the Chinese government doesn't help.


In his social media posts, Özil, who is Muslim, called Uighurs "warriors who resist persecution" and criticized China's crackdown and the silence of Muslims in response.
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Palette

Bucking the PC trend: Russia's Bolshoi Theater to continue using blackface makeup

Todd Prince
RFERL
Sun, 15 Dec 2019 05:56 UTC
bolshoi ballet
The ballet, La Bayadere, was first performed in 1877. (file photo)
Russia's Bolshoi Theater said it will not change how it performs a nearly 140-year old ballet after a U.S.-based dancer criticized its use of blackface makeup as racially insensitive.

Misty Copeland, who in 2015 became the American Ballet Theater's first black principal dancer in its more than 70-year history, reposted last week on her Instagram page a photo of young Russian ballerinas in blackface rehearsing their roles in La Bayadere.


Comment: See also:

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Arrow Up

Iran's metal exports rising despite US sanctions


FARS
Mon, 16 Dec 2019 08:51 UTC
iran metal exports
Iran's Ministry of Industry, Mine and Trade (MIMT) announced that the country's metal exports have jumped significantly in the first 7 months of the current local calendar year (March 21-October 22, 2019) showing Tehran's economic strategies have outdone the US sanctions.

Amid Tehran's efforts to broaden its access to new sources of hard currency at a time of increased American pressure on the oil industry, the MIMT said in a report published on Sunday that exports to China of major metals and mining products had reached a total of $1.568 billion in value terms between late March and late October this year, a surge of 150 percent compared to the same period in 2018.

It said the top items on the list of exports of various metals to China included iron ore and concentrates on $673 million, copper cathode on $408 million, steel ingot on $207 million, copper ore and concentrates on $127 million and zinc ingot on $57 million.

The report said that the total value of exports of metals and mining products from Iran to various countries in the seven-month period ending on October 22, 2019 had stood at $4.631 billion, an increase of 6.16 percent year-on-year.

Comment: See also:

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