Society's ChildS


Pistol

Russia's top anti-corruption officer murdered outside her apartment

crime scene
Anti corruption officer Colonel Yevhenia Shishkina was shot dead leaving her apartment in Arkhangelskoye on the outskirts of Moscow.
A top anti-corruption Russian police officer has been shot down and killed after leaving her home in Moscow.

Colonel Yevhenia Shishkina had previously been threatened by criminal gangs and reported that her car had been torched in an arson attack earlier this year.

A gunman approached Colonel Shiskina as she left her apartment in Arkhangelskoye, on the outskirts of Moscow, and shot her in the neck.

Whistle

Too political: Watchdog group objects to photo of Sarah Sanders and Kanye West

Kanye and Sarah Sanders
© PressSec / Twitter
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington called out Sarah Sanders for tweeting a photo with Kanye West when the rapper visited the White House, citing a 1939 law barring federal employees from getting too political.

The nonprofit ethics watchdog claims Trump's press secretary violated the Hatch Act, which prohibits executive branch employees from using government property to engage in certain types of political activity.

CREW claimed Kanye's choice of headgear - a red Trump "Make America Great Again" cap - turned the selfie into a political act. Executive Director Noah Bookbinder condemned the "misuse of government resources for political activity," apparently referring to Sanders' official government Twitter account.

While the Hatch Act has recently been interpreted by the Office of Special Counsel (OSC) to mean that staff should avoid using their official government social media accounts to "engage in political activity," which it defines as "any activity directed at the success or failure of a political party or partisan group...or candidate."

Colosseum

All the many ruptures imploding the United States of Empire

building implosion
We're getting close to the end now. Can you feel it? I do. It's in the news, on the streets, and in your face every day. You can't tune it out anymore, even if you wanted to.

Where once there was civil debate in the court of public opinion, we now have censorship, monopoly, screaming, insults, demonization, and, finally, the use of force to silence the opposition. There is no turning back now. The political extremes are going to war, and you will be dragged into it even if you consider yourself apolitical.

There are great pivot points in history, and we've arrived at one. The United States, ruptured by a thousand grievance groups, torn by shadowy agencies drunk on a gross excess of power, robbed blind by oligarchs and their treasonous henchmen and decimated by frivolous wars of choice, has finally come to a point where the end begins in earnest. The center isn't holding... indeed, finding a center is no longer even conceivable. We are the schizophrenic nation, bound by no societal norms, constrained by no religion, with no shared sense of history, myth, language, art, philosophy, music, or culture, rushing toward an uncertain future fueled by nothing more than easy money, hubris, and sheer momentum.

Heart - Black

Sick! Pakistanis rally to demand execution of Christian woman for 'insulting Allah'

Christian execution Islam Muslim Allah Pakistan protest
© AFP / Aamir QureshiProtesters are pictured in Rawalpindi, Pakistan.
Several thousand protesters hit the streets of Pakistan calling for the Christian woman accused of insulting Islam be put to death. Asia Bibi would become the first person executed for blasphemy if her appeal fails.

The Pakistani city of Lahore was the center of Friday's protests, which were organized by the anti-blasphemy party Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan (TLP). Demonstrations also took place in a number of other cities across the country, including Karachi and Rawalpindi.

The rallies came after Pakistan's Supreme Court heard the final appeal of Bibi, a Christian laborer accused of blasphemy against the Prophet Mohammed in 2009 by Muslim women she was working with in a field.

Heart - Black

Illegal Israeli settlers stone Palestinian woman to death in West Bank village of Nablus

Aisha Mohammed Arav stoned
© IMEMCThis file photo shows Palestinian woman Aisha Mohammed Aravi.
A middle-aged Palestinian woman has been stoned to death by Israeli settlers in the northern part of the occupied West Bank, reports say.

Aisha Mohammed Aravi, 47, was driving in her vehicle along her husband near a West Bank checkpoint south of Nablus late on Friday when they came under attack by Israeli settlers who came onto the road and began throwing large stones at the couple's car.

According to local sources, the attackers broke the windshield of the car, hitting the couple multiple times in the head and upper body with a barrage of stones. Aisha, from Bidya town, lost her life on the scene due to blunt force trauma to the head.

Comment: Nablus has been a flashpoint of illegal settler violence for decades. The "courts" appear to have no interest in restraining settler violence.


Biohazard

'Huge' amount of potentially carcinogenic toxins found near Grenfell Tower site one year later - expert

Grenfell Tower apartment
© Reuters / Toby MelvilleFlames and smoke are pictured at the Grenfell Tower apartment block on June 14, 2017.
More than one year after the Grenfell Tower tragedy claimed the lives of 72 people, a toxicology expert says a "huge" amount of potentially carcinogenic toxins have been found around the site.

Early results by Anna Stec, a professor at the University of Central Lancashire who is an expert in fire chemistry and toxicity, show that "huge concentrations" of potentially toxic carcinogens have been found in dust and soil around the area, and in burned debris that fell from the tower when it erupted in flames on June 14, 2017. Heavy amounts of hydrogen cyanide were also present in the soil analyzed by Stec and her team, according to the research seen by the Guardian.

"I have taken a high number of samples from a number of locations in the area - some were taken close to Grenfell Tower, others were taken from almost a mile away," said Stec, who has studied soil, dust, and residue taken from eight nearby sites.

Those early findings prompted Stec to urge Public Health England (PHE), the Department of Health, the police, and Kensington and Chelsea council to organize tests to ensure that any potential public health risks are properly evaluated.

Bad Guys

Lega Party branch office in Italian town attacked with firecracker before Salvini visit

Matteo Salvini
© Agence France-Presse/ Tiziana FabiItalian Northern League (Lega Nord) party leader Matteo Salvini speaks during a rally against the Italian government's policy
A night attack targeting the local offices of the Italian party Lega has taken place in the town of Ala; Lega party leader Matteo Salvinini is expected to arrive there in the evening.

Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini said on Saturday that a firecracker was thrown into the office of his right-wing Lega party in the northern Italian city of Ala on Friday night ahead of his arrival in the city for an electoral campaign rally.

Unidentified men threw an explosive at the branch office of the Italian party Lega; the blast shattered windows

Comment:


Attention

White woman calls police on 9 y.o. black boy for groping her; CCTV footage proves otherwise

NY police
© AFP / Spencer Platt
A woman who accused a nine-year-old black boy of groping her has been caught out by CCTV footage showing this not to be the case.

The woman, Teresa Klein, caused anger earlier this week after she called 911 to report an alleged sexual assault by a nine year old. The incident is the latest in a long stream of reports of white Americans calling the police on black people who are going about their business.

Theresa claimed the boy "grabbed her ass" inside a deli in Brooklyn this week.

Facebook video taken in the immediate aftermath of the incident shows the woman calling the police outside the store. The boy, his mother, and another young child are seen standing nearby. The children are crying.

Megaphone

'Lee was a great general': Trump's Civil War remarks spark Twitter outbreak

Robert E. Lee statue
© Reuters / Joshua RobertsThe statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee in Richmond, Virginia. Another piece of history memory-holed.
Trump has again found himself in a familiar place - in the middle of controversy. The US president called Confederate leader Robert E. Lee a "great general," unleashing a Twitter row over what his comments really meant.

In the era of Confederate statues and monuments being removed due to the South's history of slavery, Robert E. Lee isn't often talked about in a good light. But President Donald Trump managed to bring him up at a rally in Lebanon, Ohio on Friday.

"So Robert E. Lee was a great general. And Abraham Lincoln developed a phobia. He couldn't beat Robert E. Lee," Trump said.

He went on to explain that Lee was "winning battle after battle after battle" in the Civil War, and that Lincoln came home and said "I can't beat Robert E. Lee."

Arrow Down

Pentagon wants to raze part of Polish forest designated for conservation of rare and endangered species to expand US air base

pentagon raze protected forest poland
© Global Look Press / Michal FludraDespite the area's internationally-recognized importance for preserving Europe's most endangered birds and animals, Poland's Washington-friendly government gave the US Army the green light to ax the woodlands.
The US military wants to cut down a large swathe of green woodland in Poland, designated by the EU as a conservation site for rare and endangered species. The cleared area will be used to expand an existing air force base.

The US Army Corps of Engineers procurement documents, obtained by RT Russian, detail the Pentagon's plans to cut down 38.18 hectares of protected forest in order to build a prepositioned stock and maintenance complex (APS) around the Powidz Air Base in central Poland. All the tree-cutting must be completed by the end of February next year.

The targeted forest is part of the Gnieznienskie Lake District, which enjoys special protection within the European Union under the Natura 2000 program. This EU-wide project is tasked with listing and protecting the breeding and resting sites of "rare and threatened species."

Despite the area's internationally-recognized importance for preserving Europe's most endangered birds and animals, Poland's Washington-friendly government gave the US Army the green light to ax the woodlands. The Military Infrastructure Board filed a letter requesting a portion of the forest be removed from the Natura 2000 conservation zone.

Comment: More environmental degradation courtesy of the USA: