Society's ChildS


House

Homelessness crisis: Numbers staying in B&Bs 1000% higher than stats released by US govt


RT
Fri, 27 Apr 2018 14:19 UTC
Homeless
© Daniel Bockwoldt / Global Look PressSleeping rough in the snow.
Over 50,000 people are living in B&Bs with nowhere to go - dwarfing the government's figure of about 5,000, a bleak report on homelessness has revealed. Charity Justlife is now warning thousands are "forgotten in statistics."

Using data gathered from Freedom of Information requests to local authorities, along with other information from the government's Rural and Urban Classification for Local Authority Districts data, Justlife estimates that at least 51,500 people were living in B&Bs in the year to April 2016. Government figures show that a mere 5,870 official B&B placements were recorded.

One B&B resident, referred to in the report as Malcolm, told of his experience of living in temporary accommodation for 18 months. "I'm totally depressed living there," he said. You can't have anything nice. Things just go missing.

"You see, there aren't working locks on all the doors. In my room there are bare wires hanging out and I have no light. I also feel quite vulnerable because anyone can get in or is let in and it gets me down."
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Cross

Vatican training over 250 priests to perform exorcisms due to rash of reported demonic possessions

Callum Henderson
vt.co
Wed, 25 Apr 2018 15:32 UTC
exorcism illustration
© Illustration by Egarcigu
What's your favourite scary movie? Mine would have to be the 1973 spine-chiller The Exorcist. The characters, mood and premise have become so iconic over the years that everybody is well-versed in what the ceremony entails. But there's something quintessentially spooky about the concept, even if you don't believe in God or an afterlife. Just imagine how terrified and helpless you'd feel if one of your loved ones had their body held hostage by some demonic entity.

In real life, exorcisms are rare, used in only the most extreme of circumstances. Nowadays the church is far more likely to believe that a person speaking in tongues and frothing at the mouth is mentally ill, rather than practising witchcraft. Actually, getting an exorcism to take place is no easy matter.

The papacy insists on proof that the subject truly is possessed, and not faking or delusional, which means that many criteria have to be fulfilled before a priest will accept that the cause is supernatural.

Apparently, the Vatican-backed International Association of Exorcists, which represents more than 200 Catholic, Anglican and Orthodox priests, intends to train over 250 soldiers of God from 50 countries around the world in the exorcism ceremony, to combat Satan's agents on Earth.
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Cult

Prison sued by transgender inmate over right to practice witchcraft

Michael Gordon
Charlotte Observer
Wed, 25 Apr 2018 15:23 UTC
Jennifer Jasmaine
© North Carolina Department of Public SafetyInmate Jennifer Jasmaine
One of North Carolina's most notorious all-male prisons is the focus of a court fight over religious liberty led by a transgender witch.

Jennifer Ann Jasmaine says in her handwritten, federal lawsuit that Lanesboro Correctional Institution is blocking the practice of her spiritual beliefs, which happen to be rooted in witchcraft.

Jasmaine, a former Mecklenburg County Jail inmate, filed her complaint this month. In 2015, as inmate Duane Fox, she sued Maury Correctional Institute in Hookerton on the same grounds.

A spokesman for the state prison system contacted by the Observer declined to comment on the case.

Jasmaine, 40, says the chaplains in charge of religious services at Lanesboro have violated her constitutional rights by restricting when, where and how she can practice Wicca, the modern-day religion based on ancient pagan beliefs. The prison also has refused to provide the foods Wiccans are supposed to eat, her lawsuit says.
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Megaphone

Jimmy Carter blasts US imperial actions in Middle East - 'Bordering on war crimes'


Sputnik
Fri, 27 Apr 2018 15:17 UTC
jimmy carter
© Sputnik / Aleksey Nikolskyi
Former US President Jimmy Carter has said that US military strikes in Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and Yemen often result in high civilian casualties and has given Donald Trump advice on the upcoming talks with North Korean chief Kim Jong-un.

In an interview with The New York Times Carter, who had earlier said American drone strikes in Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and Yemen often result in high civilian casualties, was asked whether he thinks this "contradicts our claim to be a peaceful nation devoted to human rights."

"I think sometimes we have bordered on committing war crimes. I don't think that we adhere to a just approach to war, where we are supposed to make armed conflict a last resort and limit our damage to other people to a minimum," the ex-president noted.


Comment: Carter is being a bit too diplomatic. The actions of the US are absolutely war crimes, going by the standards of the Geneva Conventions.


"I think our country is known around the world as perhaps the most warlike major country there is. China hasn't been at war with anybody since 1979," he added.
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Bullseye

'Man, this is a tough crowd': Kids ask White House press secretary to justify Syria airstrikes


RT
Fri, 27 Apr 2018 13:29 UTC
Children
© Kevin Lamarque / Reuters 5
Budding reporters, aged from four to 13, took part in a mock White House briefing as part of Thursday's 'Take your child to work day' and showed they were not afraid to get stuck in at a press briefing.

One little girl tackled press secretary Sarah Sanders directly on Trump's decision to launch airstrikes on Syria. She asked: "Why did our country bomb another country?" Warding off any suggestions she was a possible plant, the girl added that she came up with her question all by herself.

"Man, this is a tough crowd," Sanders responded before attempting an explanation.

"The president wanted to make sure some of the people in the world that weren't being very nice to other people and did some really bad stuff that we made sure they knew that wasn't okay," she said. "So sometimes we have to take action like that to deter, which means prevent other countries from doing bad stuff. So that's what we were hoping to get accomplished."
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Boat

UK intent to expose 'filthy money' allegedly sheltered by Russians in British offshores


RT
Thu, 26 Apr 2018 10:44 UTC
Phoneboothonpier
© Kat Woronowicz / Global Look PressOffshore Connections
The British parliament is set to approve legislation forcing the country's offshore territories, such as the Virgin and the Cayman Islands, to disclose the identities of those benefiting from assets kept in their jurisdictions.

Parliament will vote on the draft, proposed by Labour MP Dame Margaret Hodge, as early as next week, reports The Times. UK tax havens have up to now been exempt from the current law, which requires the names of those holding such assets to be made public. The proposal, strongly supported by the Labour Party's frontbench, is supposedly aimed at tackling money laundering and, by extension, criminality, corruption and oppression, including in Russia.

The move comes more than a month after the alleged poisoning of former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, in Salisbury. London immediately accused Russia of being behind the attack, but has refused to provide evidence.
"Mrs May has so far led the world in taking a stand against Russia's challenge to international norms," said the former International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell, as quoted by the media. "But if she is to deliver on her promises she must ensure that filthy money fueling the worst abuses isn't sheltering under a British flag anywhere in the world."
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Briefcase

Crestline resident claims she saw Sasquatch in San Bernardino Mountains, files Bigfoot lawsuit

AJ
BigfootBase.com
Sun, 22 Apr 2018 00:00 UTC
Sasquatch
© Bergamin
Claudia Ackley recently brought a Bigfoot lawsuit to California. She filed the suit against the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and the state Natural Resources Agency for failing to acknowledge Bigfoot as a species, thus delegitimizing her and her colleagues serious research, threatening the species' habitat, and endangering the public.

As advised by her attorneys, she revoked the suit to enhance the case. Teaming with Bigfoot researcher Todd Standing, Ackley is gathering every piece of evidence possible to once and for all prove in the legal system, on-the-record, that Sasquatch is real.

Claudia, a 46 year old Crestline CA resident, hiked with her two daughters in the San Bernadino Mountains on March 27th 2017 when she noticed something large in the oncoming tree-line. Thirty-feet high in a tree sat a giant being: "He looked like a Neanderthal man with hair all over him. He had solid black eyes. He had no expression on his face at all. He did not show his teeth. He just stared at the three of us." She reported the encounter, but the authorities dismissed her experience, insisting that she just saw a few bears.


Comment: Recommended reading: Author/expert David Paulides' Missing 411 series on Sasquatch abductions.

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Arrow Down

Saudis decapitate 48 people in 4 months as part of Mohammed bin Salman's 'progressive reforms'


RT
Fri, 27 Apr 2018 13:58 UTC
Saudi Arabia beheading decapitation protest
© Darren Whiteside / ReutersAn activist holds a placard in front of the Saudi Arabia embassy in Indonesia
Despite apparent wide-ranging reforms in Saudi Arabia, the kingdom is certainly sticking to its death-penalty tradition, decapitating 48 criminals this year alone.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman has been lauded by Western media as the 'great reformer,' he's even been given the catchy, friendly acronym -- MbS. Bin Salman has been praised for finally allowing women to drive, enter sports stadia and opening the country's first cinemas in a generation.

Bin Salman has been busy too, he has recently been on a worldwide charm offensive, with millions of dollars being spent on an army of PR firms, selling the image of Saudi Arabia as a modern country looking to reform, and diversify the country's oil-dependent economy.
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Info

Best of the Web: 'No attack, no chemical weapons': Douma witnesses speak out at OPCW briefing at The Hague


RT
Fri, 27 Apr 2018 13:58 UTC
OPCW Douma witness Syrians
Witnesses of the alleged chemical attack in Douma, including 11-year-old Hassan Diab and hospital staff, told reporters at The Hague that the White Helmets video used as a pretext for a US-led strike on Syria was, in fact, staged.

"We were at the basement and we heard people shouting that we needed to go to a hospital. We went through a tunnel. At the hospital they started pouring cold water on me," the boy told the press conference, gathered by Russia's mission at the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in The Hague.

Hassan was among the "victims" seen being washed by water hoses in a video released by the controversial White Helmets group on April 7. The boy and his family later spoke to the media and revealed that Hassan was hurried to the scene by men who claimed that a chemical attack had taken place. They started pouring cold water on the boy and others, filming the frightened children.

Comment: The OPCW also confirms no chemical weapons were used in Douma, yet the Intercept and the MSM maintain that these witnesses are part of a Russian 'conspiracy theory'. ABC News reports:
Russia ratcheted up its efforts Thursday to try to disprove that a Syrian town was hit by a poison gas attack, bringing a group of Syrians, including an 11-year-old boy, to the global chemical weapons watchdog's headquarters to denounce the reports as fake.

The U.S., Britain, France and their allies boycotted the event at the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, branding it as "nothing more than a crude propaganda exercise" and an "obscene masquerade."
And the Intercept reports:
Over the objections of chemical weapons inspectors who are still at work in Syria, trying to determine if gas was used to kill dozens of civilians in the former rebel stronghold of Douma on April 7, Russia flew 17 Syrians from the war zone to The Hague on Thursday, where they all testified that they had seen no sign of a chemical attack.
No available reports confirm that the OPCW actually objected to witnesses speaking at the Hague. The Intercept also ignores the fact that the chemical weapons inspectors are only in Syria because they were invited by Russian and Syrian forces.

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Eye 2

Protests in Spain erupt after five men are cleared of gang-raping a teenager during Pamplona festival

Sam Jones
The Guardian
Thu, 26 Apr 2018 14:01 UTC
demonstration protest Spain
© Francisco Seco/APDemonstrators outside the justice ministry in Madrid protesting after five men were sentenced for gang raping a woman at Pamplona’s bull-running festival.
Men found guilty of lesser offence of sexual abuse of 18-year-old during Pamplona festival

Protests are being held across Spain after five men accused of the gang rape of a teenager during the running of the bulls festival in Pamplona were found guilty of the lesser offence of sexual abuse.

The attack two years ago prompted a national outcry, as did the subsequent trial, which was widely criticised as a cross-examination of the 18-year-old woman rather than the men who attacked her.

The verdicts were delivered at a court in Pamplona, the capital of the Navarre region of northern Spain. José Ángel Prenda, Alfonso Cabezuelo, Antonio Manuel Guerrero, Jesús Escudero and Ángel Boza were sentenced to nine years' imprisonment, five years' probation and ordered to pay €10,000 each to the woman. Guerrero, a Guardia Civil police officer, was also fined €900 for stealing her phone after the attack.

Protesters in Pamplona shouted "This justice is bullshit!", "It's not abuse, it's rape!" and "If they touch one of us, they touch all of us!" after the verdict was read out. On Thursday evening thousands more demonstrators gathered outside the justice ministry in Madrid, the Plaça Sant Jaume in Barcelona and in cities across the country.
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