Society's ChildS


Red Flag

UPS stops delivering to Swedish neighborhood as drivers get attacked in 'no-go zone'


RT
Fri, 01 Mar 2019 18:53 UTC
swedish police
© REUTERS/Johan Nilsson
The American shipping company has reportedly stopped delivering parcels to a notorious neighborhood in Malmo, Sweden, often labeled a "no-go zone," following a wave of attacks on their drivers.

Providing postal services for Rosengard, a neighborhood in the southern city of Malmo, proved to be too dangerous for UPS, according to local media. The revelation came to light after a local man, Marco Padoan, ordered delivery of business cards to his home address.

Instead, he received a UPS message saying they failed to deliver the parcel to the door and diverted it to the company's office in central Malmo. The company that printed out his business cards explained in an email that UPS stopped servicing the area because the drivers risked being exposed to robberies or other crimes.

The postal service itself did not respond to Padoan's queries. However, Sydsvenskan newspaper did manage to get the following confirmation: "Our drivers have been attacked and therefore we have decided not to hand out packages at [the district]."
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Che Guevara

Cuba snubs Trump's anti-socialist crusade with massive constitution vote

Pablo Vivanco
RT
Fri, 01 Mar 2019 18:00 UTC
cubans
© Getty Images / Sven Creutzmann
Cuba's new Magna Carta reinforces the island's revolutionary model, even as Washington ramps up its efforts against leftist governments in Latin America.

As Cubans lined up to cast their ballots over what is arguably the most significant reform seen by the country in half a century, US officials insisted on dismissing the vote.

"Today, through its forced constitutional referendum, the Communist Party renewed the legal pretext to deny the people of Cuba the change they desire," Kimberly Breier, Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, tweeted.

In a densely populated Central Havana neighborhood adjacent to the famed Malecon, Rodolfo Abram begged to differ.

"Voting isn't mandatory, whoever wants to vote, comes of their own volition and votes," said the 57-year-old self-employed worker. "Everyone here votes, for the yes side, for the revolution."
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Russian Flag

Russia may crack down on Visa and Mastercard over abuse of dominant market position


RT
Thu, 28 Feb 2019 17:41 UTC
credit cards
© Reuters / Maxim Zmeyev
Russia's trade associations have filed a request to the country's antitrust authority on bringing action against international payment systems Visa and Mastercard over alleged abuse of market power in Russia.

The appeal was brought by a group of trade societies, including the Association of Internet Trade Companies, the Retail Companies Association (ACORT), and the Association of Trading Companies and Manufacturers of Electrical Household and Computer Equipment, according to the Federal Antimonopoly Service, as cited by TASS.

The complaint is reportedly focused on interchange fees set by the payment systems.
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Airplane

Pilot dies as ANOTHER plane crashes into condo in Fort Lauderdale, Florida - Second in one week

Emily Shapiro, Rachel Katz, Jeffrey Cook
ABC News
Fri, 01 Mar 2019 17:42 UTC
Airplane crash
© WPLGA plane crashed into a building in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., March, 01, 2019.
A small plane crashed into a condo building in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on Friday, killing the pilot, according to local fire officials.

The plane was a single-engine Piper PA-25 aircraft, which typically only carries one person, according to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

The pilot, who was not identified, was the only person on board, officials said.

Comment: Whoa. Just five days prior, this happened:

Pilot dies, family avoids disaster as plane crashes into home in Florida

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Arrow Down

Chelsea Manning subpoenaed by grand jury, likely over past contact with Assange


RT
Fri, 01 Mar 2019 15:52 UTC
Chelsea Manning
© REUTERS / Hannah McKayChelsea Manning poses for photographs at the Institute of Contemporary Art in London, Britain, October 1, 2018.
Activist and whistleblower Chelsea Manning has been subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury, though the summons makes no mention of what she will be questioned about.

The former Army intelligence analyst, convicted in 2013 of leaking military and diplomatic documents to WikiLeaks, has stated she will fight the subpoena. Her legal team is expected to file a motion to quash on Friday morning on constitutional grounds.

"Given what is going on, I am opposing this," she told The New York Times.

"I want to be very forthright I have been subpoenaed. I don't know the parameters of the subpoena apart from that I am expected to appear. I don't know what I'm going to be asked."
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Attention

Child grooming on Istagram triples - targets are kids as young as five


Sky News
Fri, 01 Mar 2019 17:32 UTC
teen cell phone
The NSPCC has called on social media companies to do more to protect children
The number of children targeted for grooming and abuse on Instagram has more than tripled - with some of the victims as young as five years old.

Figures obtained by the NSPCC suggest there were 5,161 reports of sexual communications with a child recorded in just 18 months.

Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram were used in 70% of those incidents.

Girls aged 12 to 15 were most likely to be targeted, but roughly one in five victims were under the age of 11.

The NSPCC's chief executive, Peter Wanless, has accused social media firms of "10 years of failed self-regulation".

He said: "These figures are overwhelming evidence that keeping children safe cannot be left to social networks."

The charity obtained freedom of information data from 39 of the 43 police forces in England and Wales.
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Dollars

Why are there so many $100 dollar bills in circulation?

Kate Rooney
CNBC
Wed, 27 Feb 2019 17:04 UTC
cash money
© Scott Eisen | Bloomberg | Getty Images
The amount of $100 bills in circulation is surging. And it's leaving some economists scratching their heads.

The number of outstanding U.S. $100 bills has doubled since the financial crisis, with more than 12 billion of them across the world, according to the latest data from the Federal Reserve. C-notes have passed $1 bills in circulation, Deutsche Bank chief international economist Torsten Slok said in a note to clients this week.

Generally, economists believe the surge is related to people around the world wanting to hoard cash, a similar force that's driven the interest in cryptocurrencies. High denomination, high value currency notes have historically been a preferred form of payment for criminals, given the anonymity, lack of transaction record and relative ease with which they can be brought across borders.
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Attention

Mexican man has been in prison for 19 years for the murder of a person who is still alive


Oddity Central
Wed, 27 Feb 2019 00:00 UTC
Prison cell
On May 26, 2019, Manuel Germán Ramírez Valdovinos will have been in prison for 19 years, serving a sentence of 43 years for the murder of a man who is allegedly alive and well.

Valdovinos used to work as a music teacher at a school in the town of Texapan, in the State of Mexico. On May 26, 2000, he had just come back from work and was celebrating his son's one-month anniversary with his wife, when a commando of eight judicial policemen stormed into his home, beat him, handcuffed him and put him into the back of a car with no license plates. He was arrested without a warrant and taken to the local police station where he was hung up by his hands with metal chains, tortured with electric shocks and accused of the murder of a person he barely knew. Manuel was only 22-years-old at the time.

Upon hearing the police officers' accusation, Manuel was shocked. He knew the alleged victim, Manuel Martínez Elizalde, as he had helped him out with money before, because his family "had nothing to eat". But he had never had any arguments with him, let alone any reason to kill him. Things got even stranger when he saw Elizalde's father at the station, and then heard him tell the policemen "no, not this one, he's my friend's son and he's going to cause trouble for me". The officer in charge replied "look, you asked for three bastards and here they are. Now everything is arranged with the Public Prosecutor's Office".

Manuel claims that Elizalde's father promised the agents who arrested him a reward of $150,000 for their participation in what turned out to be an unbelievably cruel scheme. He would later learn that Manuel Martínez Elizalde's family claimed a $1 million life insurance policy after his alleged death. But the supposed murder victim never actually died. In fact, both Valdovinos and his wife Esther claim that it is a known fact that Elizalde moved to the United States where he used plastic surgery to alter his physical appearance. He has been living there ever since, under a different name, but regularly visits his father at the villa he built with the life insurance money.
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Heart - Black

Bradford, UK: Teen boy beaten in brutal attack as security guard and onlookers stand by and watch


RT
Fri, 01 Mar 2019 16:55 UTC
bradford attack
© Twitter / BlaiseKatchunga
Police have confirmed they are investigating a stomach-churning, broad daylight attack on a teenager by a gang of youths in Bradford's city center. The defenseless boy is kicked repeatedly in the head as onlookers stand and watch.

Footage of the sickening attack, in which a shopping mall security guard looks on as the victim receives multiple full-force kicks and stamps to the head, was shared online which spurred the West Yorkshire into action.

Warning: Some may find this graphic footage disturbing.
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Marijuana

More than 9,000 marijuana convictions dismissed in latest case of cities taking action

Meghan Keneally
ABC News
Thu, 28 Feb 2019 03:32 UTC
Marijuana
© Denver Post via Getty Images, FILE
San Francisco has become the latest city to push for old marijuana-related criminal offenses to be cleared, with the city's district attorney announcing that thousands of people will have their cases dismissed and sealed.

In all, 9,362 people will be eligible for dismissal, according to George Gascon, the San Francisco District Attorney. Each of them had received either a misdemeanor possession convictions or felony convictions for possession with intent to sell, sales or transportation of marijuana or the cultivation of more than six marijuana plants.

Gascon and his team worked with Code for America, a non-partisan group focused on improving government services through technology, to identify the cases - an effort that had been ongoing since January 2018.

"It's important because when people have criminal convictions - especially felony convictions - they are precluded from participating in society in many ways," Gascon said, adding that "we as a society" have determined that the so-called "war on drugs" has been ineffective and this is one way to fix it.
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