Society's ChildS


Pirates

Afghan official reports Daesh forced to go underground with fewer than 10,000 fighters while Taliban expands


Sputnik
Mon, 26 Nov 2018 21:09 UTC
Afghan troops
© AFP 2018 / Noorullah Shirzada / Pool
The militants of the Islamic State terrorist group (banned in Russia) have gone underground in Afghanistan, with the size of the organization's sleeper cells in the country currently amounting to less than 10,000, Mohammad Mohaqiq, the second deputy chief executive of Afghanistan, told Sputnik in an interview.

"Takfiris [followers of a radical Islamist ideology] and Daesh terrorists do not have official presence in the provinces of Faryab, Jowzjan and Sar-e Pol, however, despite this, they are hiding in sleeper cells, there are also a number of camps, where the foreigners are undergoing training, but they do not openly declare their presence," Mohaqiq said.

He added that the terrorists operating in the country had suffered considerable casualties in fights with the Taliban radical movement.
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Handcuffs

Borussia Dortmund bus bomber given 14yrs jail for attempted murder


RT
Tue, 27 Nov 2018 00:04 UTC
Sergei Wenergold
© Leon Kuegeler / dpaSergei Wenergold
German Sergei Wenergold was found guilty of 28 counts of attempted murder for an April 2017 attack on Borussia Dortmund's team bus before a UEFA Champions League fixture which injured defender Marc Bartra and a police officer.

Wenergold, 29, was also found guilty by a Dortmund state court of inflicting grievous bodily harm and of causing an explosion.

The attack occurred on April 11 last year when the Dortmund team were leaving their hotel for a Champions League clash with AS Monaco.

Three explosions caused bus windows to smash, injuring Spanish defender Bartra, who then missed one month of the season as a result of a broken wrist damaged in the blast.
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Boat

Russia will invest $4B to build Arctic port servicing Northern Sea Route


RT
Wed, 28 Nov 2018 10:56 UTC
LNG Arctic port
© Yamal LNG
Plans for building a sea port in on one of Russia's northernmost areas have been brought back to life. The $4 billion project in the Nenets region is key to the country's strategic plan to open shipping in the Arctic.

The project has reportedly been included in Moscow's list of major investment projects on transport and infrastructure development. The new port, which will be located in the small Nenets settlement of Indiga, will be operated year-round.

The annual cargo turnover is set to reach 70 million tons, 50 million tons of which will account for coal shipments, extracted from Russia's biggest coal mining area in the Kuznetsk Basin, located in southwestern Siberia.

The sea port will be financed by both private investors and state support. Private investors are expected steer 60 billion rubles ($900 million) into the project with the remaining 198 billion rubles ($3 billion) to be provided by the Russian government.

Comment: See also:

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Chart Pie

Several major demographic trends which are shaping America's future

Michael Snyder
End Of The American Dream
Mon, 26 Nov 2018 00:00 UTC
US demographic trends
We are witnessing a fundamental transformation of America. Some welcome the changes that are happening, while others are greatly resisting them. But one thing is very clear - the United States is a very different place than it was 40 or 50 years ago. Our population is aging, lifestyle patterns are dramatically shifting, and young adults view the world very differently than Baby Boomers do. The changes that we are watching happen are going to take our society in new directions, and already the pace of change is accelerating at a pace that is absolutely breathtaking. The following are 8 shocking demographic trends which will greatly shape America's future...

#1 Like Japan and many countries in Europe, the population of the United States is rapidly aging. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, children will soon be outnumbered by those that are 65 and older, and that will be the first time that this has ever happened in all of U.S. history...
Adults 65 and older will soon outnumber children for the first time in America's history, it has been revealed.

The US Census Bureau released new projections this year that showed the country's changing - and aging - demographics.

By 2030 all baby boomers will be older than age 65 and one in every five Americans will be retirement age.

Comment: The author may want to revise his thoughts on 'peak oil'. But most everything else appears to be correct.

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Bad Guys

'Racially aggravated assault' on Syrian refugee schoolboy sparks outrage


The Guardian
Wed, 28 Nov 2018 02:48 UTC
almondbury community school bullying syrian child
© GoogleThe incident is said to have taken place on playing fields at Almondbury Community School
West Yorkshire police are investigating a report of a "racially aggravated assault" against a 15-year-old boy after a violent video was shared on social media.

The victim, with his arm in a cast, is seen to be dragged to the floor by his neck before his attacker says "I'll drown you" while forcing water from a bottle into his mouth.

The incident is said to have taken place on playing fields at Almondbury Community School in Huddersfield on 25 October.


Comment: The video clip posted on Twitter:



Comment: RT adds that within hours of the video being shared, a fundraising page for Jamal was launched which has so far raised tens of thousands of pounds for the Syrian refugee. More Twitter responses:



This story seems to have prompted just a tad too much hysteria:



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Arrow Down

US airstrike kills 30 civilians in Afghanistan

Mohammad Stanekzai
US News
Wed, 28 Nov 2018 18:32 UTC
Afghan boy airstrike
© ReutersAn Afghan boy receives treatment at a hospital after an airstrike in Helmand province, Afghanistan November 28, 2018.
At least 30 Afghan civilians were killed in U.S. air strikes in the Afghan province of Helmand, officials and residents of the area said on Wednesday, the latest casualties from a surge in air operations aimed at driving the Taliban into talks.

Afghanistan's NATO-led force said Afghan government forces and U.S. advisers came under fire from Taliban fighters in a compound in Garmsir district and called in an air strike, but the ground forces were not aware of any civilians in or near the compound.

Helmand provincial governor Mohammad Yasin Khan said troops had called in air strikes against Taliban fighters in Garmsir, causing both civilian and Taliban casualties.

A resident of the area called Mohammadullah said the clash began late on Tuesday.
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Treasure Chest

Oops! Russian state bank VTB almost loans poor African country six times its GDP by mistake


RT
Wed, 28 Nov 2018 17:53 UTC
VTB capital bank loan CAR
VTB did not say who was responsible for the mistake or how such a large figure could have been published without being spotted.
The Central African Republic (CAR) could have landed windfall on Tuesday after Russian state bank VTB reported it had almost lent the country $12 billion by mistake. The sum is over six times the country's gross domestic product.

The loan was mentioned in a quarterly VTB financial report published by the Central Bank of Russia and seen by Reuters. However, VTB insists it was a technical error and that no such loan was provided to the African country.

"VTB bank has no exposure of this size to CAR. Most likely, this is a case of a technical mistake in the system when the countries were being coded," the lender said in a statement sent to Reuters. It didn't detail who was responsible for the mistake or how such a large figure could have been published without being spotted.
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X

'Those who question are smeared and threatened' - feminist banned from Twitter for saying 'men aren't women'


RT
Wed, 28 Nov 2018 17:55 UTC
censorship
© Getty Images
A feminist - banned from Twitter for saying that "men are not women" - told RT that those who question ideologies of modern society are threatened, harassed and even fired, adding free speech and democracy may be in danger.

Meghan Murphy, editor of Canada's leading feminist news portal Feminist Current, was banned on Twitter because several of her tweets violated the platform's rules against "hateful conduct." One of the 'offending' tweets stated that "men aren't women," while the other asked: "How are transwomen not men?"

Contacted by RT, Murphy shared her reaction on the ban and tried to unravel what lies behind this online drive. She believes that society is now being forced "to adapt to a new language and a new ideology" which says that the instant a male declares that he is a woman, they must be accepted as literally female.
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Cross

Dutch church holds 800 hour non-stop service to keep political deportation from occurring

Holly Robertson
ABC News Australia
Tue, 27 Nov 2018 14:37 UTC
Protestant church in The Hague.
The Tamrazyans are now receiving sanctuary in a Protestant church in The Hague.
A Dutch church service that began a month ago has maintained a 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-per-week service for over a month to protect an Armenian refugee family from being deported.

The Tamrazyans, a family of five, have lived in the Netherlands for nearly nine years, but are facing expulsion after a court rejected their appeals to stay in the country.

They are now receiving sanctuary in a Protestant church in The Hague, where under Dutch law, police are prohibited from entering places of worship during religious services, meaning the family cannot be arrested as long as the service continues.

"We do all this by continuously praying, singing, listening to sermons and worshipping," Reverend Axel Wicke, a priest at the Bethel church, tweeted.
"The Tamrazyan family is literally living in a protective house built by prayers and worship."
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Caesar

'Temples to colonial theft': Museums in the West should return stolen artifacts to where they came from

Danielle Ryan
RT
Wed, 28 Nov 2018 12:21 UTC
© Reuters / Carlos Barria"Moai" statues, Easter Island
Is it possible to 'loan' something back to the person or place you stole it from? The British Museum in London, which houses one of the biggest permanent collections of world art and artifacts, certainly seems to think so.

Last week, responding to an emotional plea from the governor of Easter Island, the museum generously announced that it would consider "loaning" an 800-year-old statue back to the territory, which is now part of Chile.

The Hoa Hakananai'a was stolen - or "taken without permission" as The Guardian more delicately put it - in 1868 by the British HMS 'Topaze' and delivered to Queen Victoria. The museum itself uses even more sanitized language. Its online information page about the statue explains that it was "collected" during the frigate's expedition to Rapa Nui (Easter Island) and was "gifted" by the Queen to the museum a year later.

"This statue would have originally stood on a specially built platform on the sacred site of Orongo," the museum explains. "It would have stood with giant stone companions, their backs to the sea, keeping watch over the island."
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