Society's ChildS


Ambulance

VA criticized for patient neglect, unsanitary conditions, contractor self-dealing

Charles S. Clark
GovExec
Tue, 30 Jan 2018 15:50 UTC
Veterans Affairs whistleblower
© Scott Olson / Getty Images / Agence France Presse
The Veterans Affairs Department last week was hit by three highly critical letters of referral to Congress and the president in whistleblower cases probed by the Office of Special Counsel.

The separate cases documented staff failures at VA medical centers to respond to reports of unfair barriers to patients needing organ transplants, a slow response to unsanitary conditions in spinal cord care, and an unethical procurement of landscaping supplies.

At the Audie L. Murphy Memorial VA Hospital in San Antonio, nurse and program manager Jamie McBride had disclosed problems with procedures for referring meritorious patients to the life-saving Solid Organ Transplant Program.

The program's structure "causes financial and other hardships to veterans and their families by requiring them to relocate for months to receive treatment," Special Counsel Henry Kerner said in a statement on his Jan. 26 letter to President Trump. McBride alleged that communication problems between VA medical centers and transplant centers delay care, and that the transplant centers apply inconsistent and overly restrictive eligibility criteria for liver and kidney transplants. He cited a low level of specialty care and an "unwillingness" to promptly perform living donor kidney transplants.

Comment: Here's what Trump had to say about the VA at his State of the Union this week:
And we are serving our brave veterans, including giving our veterans choice in their healthcare decisions. Last year, the Congress passed, and I signed, the landmark VA Accountability Act. Since its passage, my Administration has already removed more than 1,500 VA employees who failed to give our veterans the care they deserve -- and we are hiring talented people who love our vets as much as we do.

I will not stop until our veterans are properly taken care of, which has been my promise to them from the very beginning of this great journey.

All Americans deserve accountability and respect -- and that is what we are giving them. So tonight, I call on the Congress to empower every Cabinet Secretary with the authority to reward good workers -- and to remove Federal employees who undermine the public trust or fail the American people.


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Books

Cuba strengthens relations with China with 27th International Book Fair


teleSUR
Thu, 01 Feb 2018 15:45 UTC
book fair
© Granma
Members of at least 40 nations are taking part in Cuba's 27th annual International Book Fair, FIL, which kicked off Thursday.

At least 140 exhibitors from 22 countries will put up their stalls at the San Carlos de la Cabaña Fortress along with a few other locations in the capital city of Havana. Out of the 62 publishers exhibiting their publications, institutes from Peru, Spain and Panama have the largest concentration of representatives.

The fair, which began in 1937, also aims to build relations and bridge the gap between China and Cuba.

Cuba was the first Latin American nation to establish diplomatic relations with China in 1960.

More than 220 Chinese writers, artists, officials and representatives of Chinese publishers have confirmed their attendance. The South Asian country, which will be participating at the fair for the first time, has also been named the guest of honor by the FIL committee.
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Info

Hijab protests trigger debate in Iran


Al-Monitor
Wed, 31 Jan 2018 15:32 UTC
iran women hijab
© REUTERS/Darren StaplesWomen wait for a bus in central Tehran, Iran, Aug. 24, 2015.
On Jan. 30, a group of women in Tehran protested the country's compulsory hijab rules by taking off their scarves in public and holding them up on sticks.

The protest led to a series of reactions from both officials and analysts.

Abbas Abdi, a Reformist analyst, said Jan. 29: "The events of the past few days ... have made [the start of] a discussion on hijab necessary. It wasn't possible to discuss and speak about this issue for a long time, and it had become a taboo."

"We should judge [this issue] fairly. While a large number of [high-ranking] clerics know the interest rates that banks have set as usury, and this has been continuing for 40 years for any reason, why should we insist on issues that haven't been addressed in the Quran explicitly, and no disapproval of [not wearing a hijab is in the Quran]. [We can't] enforce a part of [Islam] and not enforce another part of it. This is a defeated experience, and it is better not to do that again," wrote Abdi in the Reformist Etemaad newspaper.

It should be noted that based on Islamic Sharia, usury is forbidden.

Comment: See also: Weaponized 'women's rights': CIA propaganda arm now runs headscarf campaign against Iran

Iranian police reportedly arrested 29 women for protesting the hijab law, claiming the women had been "tricked" by an Iranian expat propaganda campaign. Before this protest got started in late December of last year, we saw this headline: So it looks like Iranian society might already be moving in that direction. Conservatives won't be happy, of course.

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Attention

Moscow warns citizens of 'US hunt for Russians all over the world'


RT
Fri, 02 Feb 2018 14:04 UTC
Russian Foreign Ministry
© Natalia Seliverstova / SputnikThe Russian Foreign Ministry building
The Russian Foreign Ministry has issued a warning to all citizens about the threat of being detained or arrested in foreign countries at the request of US special services.

"American special services are continuing their de facto hunt for Russians all over the world," reads the statement published on the ministry's website on Friday. The Russian diplomats also gave several examples of such arbitrary detentions of Russian citizens that took place in Spain, Latvia, Canada and Greece.

Comment: Further reading: Kremlin report: Why the US effort to sap Russia is doomed to failure

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USA

DOJ to drop its public corruption case against Sen. Robert Menendez

Michael Patrick Leahy
Breitbart
Fri, 02 Feb 2018 14:04 UTC
Robert Menendez
© AP Photo/Mel Evans
The Justice Department is dropping its public corruption case against Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ).

"In a shocking turnaround, the U.S. Justice Department has dropped its case against Sen. Robert Menendez," NJ.com reported.

"In a court hearing today, federal prosecutors moved to dismiss the corruption indictment against the New Jersey Democrat," NJ.com added.
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Heart - Black

UK: Male victims of sexual abuse rise 300% in the past decade


RT
Fri, 02 Feb 2018 10:06 UTC
man shadow
© Getty
The number of males reporting being raped has seen a staggering increase of almost 300 percent in the past decade, new figures reveal. With some charities claiming the figures are just the tip of the iceberg.

According to the Office for National Statistics, the number of men reporting sexual offences, including rape, rose from 3,819 to 12,130 between 2006-07 and 2016-17.

Despite the hike in the number of reports, Andy Connolly, chief executive of male rape and sexual abuse charity Survivors UK, said there was still a "massive wall of silence" surrounding the issue.

Comment: The statistics show that men suffer abuse in equal proportion to females, and in some areas even more so. For an in-depth look on the matter, see: Five Feminist Lies We Take For Granted and The Health & Wellness Show: Toxic Feminism and the War on Men

Also See:

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Snowflake Cold

Russian man lives to tell his tale after surviving 5 days lost in the woods in freezing cold temperatures


Sputnik
Fri, 02 Feb 2018 12:23 UTC
winter trees
© Sputnik/ Alexander Alpatkin
A Russian man shares his chilling story of how not to freeze to death for five days in the woods with temperatures dropping to as low as 31 C below zero and not to starve by eating pine trees.

A 31-one-year-old man from Central Russia's Chelyabinsk region has got a lucky escape after spending five days in minus 30C temperatures lost in a forest. To survive he ate pine tree spikes and used snow for water.

The man, named Andrey, went to the woods to cut trees but never found a way out.
"The first two days were ok," he says, "but I was hungry and thirsty, felt dehydrated, so I drank melted snow and ate pine tree spikes. I'd start a fire and sleep next to it to keep warm, that was my biggest fear to freeze in the woods. When they found me I wasn't thinking straight, I took off my hat and jacket and was just wearing a sweater."

Comment: See also:

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Newspaper

Fidel Castro's oldest son commits suicide


RT
Fri, 02 Feb 2018 12:27 UTC
Fidel Castro Diaz-Balart
© AFP
Fidel Castro Diaz-Balart, the son of Cuba's revolutionary icon Fidel Castro has committed suicide after a battle with depression, Cuban state-run media has reported.

Diaz-Balart, 68, the oldest son among Fidel's many children, was being treated by a group of doctors for the depression he suffered in the final months of his life. Diaz-Balart was a doctor of sciences, the Vice President of the Academy of Sciences of Cuba, and served as scientific advisor to the Council of State.
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Attention

Indonesia: Aceh province looks set to enforce Shariah law

Sara Malm
Daily Mail
Thu, 01 Feb 2018 14:54 UTC
woman whipped sharia indonesia aceh
Punished: An Acehnese woman covers her face as she is whipped in public for having sex outside marriage, an act which is punished under sharia law in the province of Aceh and is set to become a crime under state law in the entire country
Sex outside marriage is set to become a crime in Indonesia, following a proposal by lawmakers this week.

If the revision to the criminal code is passed by Parliament, sexual acts involving unmarried persons and gay sex in any form would be punishable by up to five years in prison.

Sex outside marriage is already considered a crime in Indonesia's Aceh province, where strict Shariah law is implemented and those who violate it are whipped in public.

Comment: Vladmir Putin's solution to extreme Islamic ideology in Russia was:
These ideas, even destructive ones, can only be tackled in one way - through other ideas.
What is hopeful is that in a country with a 90% Muslim population, only one province has the adequate support to implement Shariah Law.

Also See:

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Bad Guys

Man gets zero jail time for child rape (while others serve life in prison for drugs) because he's 'legally blind'

Rachel Blevins
The Free Thought Project
Fri, 02 Feb 2018 11:46 UTC
Benjamin Lawrence Petty
A 36-year-old man will face no jail time for brutally raping a 13-year-old girl after his status as "legally blind" apparently set him apart from the dozens of nonviolent offenders who are serving life sentences without parole.

In a state where at least 52 people are serving life sentences without the possibility of parole for drug convictions, a man will walk free after he confessed to brutally raping a 13-year-old girl. Yes, really.

Benjamin Lawrence Petty, 36, pleaded guilty to felony charges of forcible sodomy, first-degree rape, and rape by instrumentation after he sexually assaulted a 13-year-old girl while working as a cook at a church camp. Instead of facing years in prison, Petty was sentenced to 15 years of probation.

Despite the fact that Petty used ropes to secure the child's wrists so that she could not leave, raped her, and then threatened her with physical harm if she told anyone what he had done, Murray County Assistant District Attorney David Pyle told NewsOK that he justified the lack of prison time in the plea deal because Petty is "legally blind."

Comment: It seems that you don't have to be all that blind to be considered "legally blind". How else could he manage to tie up her hands let alone work as a cook? Yet another failure of the justice system. See also: The American Nightmare: The tyranny of the criminal justice system

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