Society's ChildS


Bizarro Earth

Pakistan police file charges against hundreds who violently protested against release of woman on death row for blasphemy


RFE/RL
Sun, 04 Nov 2018 17:49 UTC
pakistan protest
Protests against the acquittal were held across Pakistan.
The husband of a Pakistani Christian woman recently acquitted of blasphemy after eight years on death row has pleaded for asylum from Western countries, saying his family was in great danger in Pakistan.

"I am requesting [U.S.] President Donald Trump to help us to leave [the country], and I am requesting the prime minister of the U.K. help us and as far as possible grant us freedom," Asia Bibi's husband said in a video message, news agencies reported on November 4.

The husband, Ashiq Masih, also called on Canadian leaders for help.

Bibi, a 54-year-old mother of four, was sentenced to death in 2010 for allegedly insulting Islam's Prophet Muhammad -- a charge she has denied.

The case has attracted global attention, and several countries have offered Bibi asylum.

The Supreme Court overturned Bibi's conviction on October 30, sparking three days of violent, nationwide protests by hard-line Islamists demanding Bibi's execution.

Comment: So it seems some followers aren't content with her leaving the country and they will only be happy once she's back on the death row. At least the authorities are showing some sanity: Also check out SOTT radio's:

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Bacon n Eggs

Tofurky is suing over Missouri's definition of 'meat'

Kate Yoder
Grist
Wed, 29 Aug 2018 00:01 UTC
veggie burger
© Abel Uribe / Chicago Tribune / TNS via Getty Images
On Tuesday, Missouri became the first state to ban "meat" from the product labels of plant-based and lab-grown alternatives. The new law, part of a larger agricultural bill, prohibits "misrepresenting a product as meat" if it doesn't come directly from an animal. Violators are subject to a fine of $1,000 and - wait for it - a year in prison.

Harsh punishment for calling vegetarian sausage "sausage," huh? Tofurky seems to think so. The vegan company filed a lawsuit against Missouri on Monday to block the law, joined by the Good Food Institute, Animal Legal Defense Fund, and American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri. The suit seeks to defend the right to market meatless products with meaty words on First Amendment grounds.

The Missouri Cattlemen's Association lobbied to pass the law. The beef industry has been working to protect what it calls "beef nomenclature" with stricter labeling rules, which could potentially leave environmentally friendlier plant-based or lab-grown options with some unappetizing names (anyone want some textured vegetable protein for dinner?). In April, the National Cattlemen's Beef Association president wrote to the U.S. Department of Agriculture to raise the alarm over the "flagrantly deceptive food product labels proliferating the marketplace."

Comment: God forbid a law gets passed to force food producers to say exactly what their product is. The fact that the truth is "unappetizing" should be a red flag to anyone actually considering eating these products. 'Textured soy protein isolate patty' doesn't sound good to you? Then why eat it?

See also:

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Eye 1

"She was murdered!" Ukrainian civil activist who was investigating corrupt officials dies following acid attack


RT
Mon, 05 Nov 2018 00:39 UTC
Ukraine journalist Katerina Gandzyuk murdered
© Instagram / anna4ernenkoMemorial for Ukrainian activist Katerina Gandzyuk
Ukrainian activist Katerina Gandzyuk has died at a Kiev hospital, where she had been treated after surviving an acid attack this summer. A group of far-right veterans of the conflict in Eastern Ukraine are suspected of the attack.

The exact causes of her death have not been established, yet Ukrainian law enforcement has already re-qualified the acid attack case as a "deliberate murder." Ukrainian media in turn reports that she likely died due to a blood clot. Gandzyuk was a prominent "civil activist" with strong anti-Russian views, who took part in virtually all the unrest in the country over the past two decades - both in the so-called Orange Revolution in 2004 and the 2014 Maidan coup.

The death of 33-year-old Gandzyuk prompted protests across the country, with activists taking to the streets, demanding justice and urging the authorities to investigate attacks on other activists. A candle-lit vigil was held in front of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Kiev. The activists carried placards reading "She was murdered" and "Who ordered to murder Katerina Gandzyuk?"

Comment: Could it be that this anti-Russia, pro-coup activist finally began to uncover the nefarious underbelly of the real players in Ukraine and was targeted by the very people she helped bring to power? Also check out SOTT radio's: Behind the Headlines: 'Revolution' in Ukraine: A history of manufactured chaos

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Cell Phone

Pew Research: Nearly half of young users have deleted Facebook from their phone in the last year

Matt Rosoff
CNBC
Tue, 11 Sep 2018 14:45 UTC
Sheryl Sandberg Facebook
© Andrew Harrer | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesSheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer of Facebook Inc., listens during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Wednesday, Sept. 5, 2018.
Facebook's year of scandals is driving young users away from the platform, according to a Pew survey.

Pew surveyed more than 3,400 U.S. Facebook users in May and June, and found that a whopping 44 percent of those ages 18 to 29 say they've deleted the app from their phone in the last year. Some of them may have reinstalled it later.

Overall, 26 percent of survey respondents say they deleted the app, while 42 percent have "taken a break" for several weeks or more, and 54 percent have adjusted their privacy settings.

Comment: One look at the recent headlines about Facebook and it seems little wonder people are deleting it in droves.

See:

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Heart - Black

Truck crashes hitting 31 cars, bus drives off bridge, and other accidents, leave more than 20 dead in China

Steven Jiang
CNN
Sun, 04 Nov 2018 12:05 UTC
China bus crash
A truck hit 31 cars and killed at least 15 people after the driver lost control Saturday night near an expressway toll booth in northwestern China, Chinese authorities said.

More than 40 other people were injured in the accident in the city of Lanzhou. Local police, in a statement released Sunday, faulted the truck driver, saying he lost control of his vehicle after continuously braking on a lengthy downslope leading to the toll gates.

The driver, who had never driven on this expressway before, panicked and did not steer away from traffic when his brake failed, according to the authorities.

In another road accident, police in northwestern China said a bus in the city of Hanzhong, Shaanxi province, lost control Saturday afternoon, swerving into traffic and killing at least two people. Another five people were injured.

Comment: See also:

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Colosseum

Two old buildings collapse in Marseille - At least 4 residents killed


Sputnik
Mon, 05 Nov 2018 10:33 UTC
marseilles building collapse
© AFP 2018 / Gerard Julien
Fire brigades and police have already arrived on the scene and started to inspect the collapsed buildings in Marseille.

Two buildings have collapsed in the city of Marseille on the southern coast of France, according to local authorities, but there is no immediate information about any casualties.

The administration of Bouches-du-Rhône, the department in which the city is located, has tweeted photos of the destroyed buildings.


Comment: Update 10pm CET

The latest is that the bodies of two men and two women have been found. Authorities believe there may be five to eight victims.

marseille buildings collapse
Images taken by Google in July show the dilapidated facades of 63 and 65 rue d'Aubagne, which collapsed Monday.


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Eye 1

How to get ahead in mainstream media: Bash Julian Assange

Caitlin Johnstone
Medium
Fri, 02 Nov 2018 10:01 UTC
Julian Assange


Wired has just published what might be the single most brazenly dishonest and manipulative piece of down-punching empire smut that I have ever read. An article by Virginia Heffernan titled "The Real Houseguest of the Ecuadorian Embassy" revolves around the outright lie that Julian Assange is suing the Ecuadorian government because he doesn't feel like cleaning up after his cat and maintaining basic hygiene in the embassy he's been confined to since 2012. In reality, the legal case arose from the fact that despite being granted political asylum for his journalism, Assange has for months been cut off from the world and forbidden to practice journalism by the new government of Ecuador, and would remain unable to practice journalism under the new conditions Quito recently imposed upon him.

The article reads as though its author is attempting to force snarky humor through a thick fog of hatred and personal misery while seeing how many lies she can pack into each paragraph. Heffernan claims falsely that Assange is "wanted on various criminal charges"; Assange has not been charged with anything. Heffernan claims falsely that Assange "has been closely linked to the Kremlin and Russian president Vladimir Putin"; this is just objectively false with no evidence backing it up whatsoever. Heffernan claims falsely that "the distinct possibility has surfaced that during his embassy tenure Assange communicated with Roger Stone, Donald Trump's consigliere, via magic decoder rings or the internet"; there's no evidence that Stone had any "back channel" with WikiLeaks, and the information he notoriously amplified was already public. Heffernan claims falsely that WikiLeaks is "Russia-aligned"; another assertion for which there is zero evidence and much evidence to the contrary.

You get the picture. I'm not going to spend an entire article beating up on some writer for Wired just for authoring an amazingly horrible article about Julian Assange, especially when there are so very, very many other ambitious presstitutes falling all over themselves in a mad scramble to do the exact same thing right now.

Comment: See also:

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Family

Thousands attend: Funeral of Pakistani cleric referred to as 'Father of the Taliban'


RFE/RL
Sat, 03 Nov 2018 14:22 UTC
Maulana Sami ul-Haq
© Radio Farda/Zohra BensemraMaulana Sami ul-Haq
Thousands of people attended the funeral of Maulana Sami ul-Haq, a prominent Pakistani cleric known as the "father of the Afghan Taliban," in Pakistan's northwestern city of Noshera on November 3.

Sami ul-Haq, 81, was killed in a knife attack at his home in the city of Rawalpindi, near the capital Islamabad, on November 2.

The funeral was held under tight security and was also attended by the governor and the chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, as well as leaders of political and religious parties.

Local TV channel Geo News quoted the cleric's son, Hamid ul-Haq, as saying he was stabbed to death by unidentified attackers.

"My father was his on way to a sit-in protest in Islamabad. He returned to his house due to closure of roads and went to his bedroom. Later, he was found dead in pool of blood," Hamid ul-Haq told Geo News. Police say that the motive behind the killing was not immediately known and no group has so far claimed responsibly for the attack.

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Star of David

Watch ultra-orthodox Jews row with Israeli police over military draft law


Sputnik
Sat, 03 Nov 2018 20:29 UTC
Ultra-Orthodox Jews
© Reuters/Ronen ZvulunUltra-Orthodox Jews
The ultra-Orthodox Jewish community came out to protest in August 2018 following the arrest of a yeshiva student who tried to evade mandatory military service.

Dozens of ultra-Orthodox Jews have clashed with Israeli police in the city of Bnei Brak while protesting against the country's military draft law, which requires most citizens to enlist in mandatory military service. The ultra-Orthodox community has traditionally enjoyed special treatment in that regard, having an option to legally avoid military service in order to devote themselves to religious studies.

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Star of David

IDF soldier rampage shoots 2 neighbors, attacks 3 with ax, confiscated gun given back by 'accident'


RT
Sat, 03 Nov 2018 23:51 UTC
Ambulances
© www.Kooznet.comAmbulances respond to the attacks.
An Israeli soldier, previously investigated and stripped of his weapon for violent behavior, has shot two people in his hometown and attacked three more with an ax, following a social media brawl over municipal elections.

The IDF soldier, whose name was not released but who was on leave after a previous violent incident, engaged in a fight with his neighbors in Fassouta Arab local council, near the Lebanese border. The argument apparently broke out following a heated social media altercation involving his family and members of the community, about the nationwide Israeli municipal elections that were held Friday.

As the conflict heated up, the soldier grabbed an ax, striking three people. He then shot two men in their 20s before leaving the gun and fleeing the scene. "He walked around town and shot people as though there was nothing that could stop him," Edgar Dakwar, the chief of Fassuta's council told Haaretz, noting that local elections had caused a heated atmosphere in the town.
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