Society's ChildS

Star of David

"Not a democracy": Israelis respond to proposed anti-BDS law amendments

Boycott from Within
Mondoweiss
Mon, 26 Mar 2018 20:21 UTC
israel bds sign
© BDSMovement.net
In 2011, Israel passed the 'Boycott Law'. The law makes Israeli citizens legally liable if they boycott, or encourage a boycott of an Israeli product, company, or institution, if that boycott "harms the state". Since then, Israel has been piling up amendments to the original law, and additional legislation that aims to silence opposition to its systematic abuses of the human rights of the indigenous Palestinian people.

As the Boycott Law stands, Israeli citizens are under threat of being sued a minimum of 8,500 USD in damages, if they make a public call not to purchase a product or service from an Israeli company, which is complicit in Israel's violations of international law and Palestinian human rights, or explicitly do so themselves. In such cases, the State of Israel identifies itself with the brand name, and enables the companies to file vindictive lawsuits.

As an illustration of this anti-democratic legislation, if an Israeli citizen decides to cancel a contract with a mobile phone provider for bad service - they are not legally liable. But if they wish to cancel a contract with a mobile phone provider for providing services to the Israeli army, which systematically subjects a population of millions of indigenous Palestinians to systematic, daily human rights violations and war crimes - they may be legally liable.


Comment: In other words, it is thought-crime. It has nothing to do with the act itself, but for the motivation behind the act.


This anti-democratic Israeli law makes it possible to sue Israeli citizens and human rights activists like us for the aforementioned hefty sum, and to sue us for damages on top of that.
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Fire

Fire at mental health facility in Moscow suburb, close to 300 patients and staff evacuated


RT
Fri, 30 Mar 2018 19:56 UTC
Fire in health facility
© Maxim Shemetov / ReutersFirefighters in Moscow, Russia
Patients and personnel are being evacuated from a mental health facility in the city of Noginsk outside Moscow.

The blaze occurred in one of the buildings belonging to the 25th psychiatric hospital, the Emergencies Ministry said. The fire started on the third floor of the building and covered 40 square meters.
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Evil Rays

It's not all about guns: Secret Service analysis finds 64% of mass shooters suffer from mental illness

Kevin Johnson
USA TODAY
Thu, 29 Mar 2018 20:13 UTC
parkland shooting
A striking number of suspects linked to violent attacks in schools and other public places last year were stalked by symptoms of mental illness, and nearly half were motivated by real or perceived personal grievances, a new Secret Service report has found.

An examination of 28 attacks, which claimed nearly 150 lives and wounded hundreds from Orlando to Las Vegas also found that more than three-quarters of the assailants engaged in suspicious communications or conduct that raised concerns from others before the assaults, according to the report.

The analysis, prepared by the Secret Service's National Threat Assessment Center, had been in the works months before the massacre Feb. 14 at a high school in Parkland, Fla., but its findings are likely to further fuel concerns about the untreated mentally ill and their access to high-powered firearms.
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Arrow Down

Apple facing lawsuit in South Korea from over 60,000 iPhone users for slowing down older models


RT
Fri, 30 Mar 2018 20:09 UTC
iphone
© Jo Yong-Hak / Reuters
Authorities in South Korea announced that 63,767 iPhone users in the country have lodged a mass lawsuit against US tech giant Apple for slowing down older models.

It is South Korea's biggest-ever class action lawsuit, and demands that Apple pay millions of dollars in damages.

According to Xinhua news agency, the users are represented by local law firm Hannuri. It has filed the class action lawsuit with the Seoul Central District Court against Apple and Apple Korea, the local unit of the iPhone manufacturer.

The iPhone customers are demanding damages worth 200,000 won ($188) per plaintiff, or 12.75 billion won ($12 million) in total.
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Health

Roadside bomb in Syria kills US and UK soldier and injures 5 more


RT
Fri, 30 Mar 2018 20:01 UTC
us soldier
© Rodi Said / ReutersUS army soldier seen in the town of Tabqa, Syria, June 29, 2017
A roadside bomb in the Syrian town of Manbij has killed two members of the US-led anti-ISIS coalition and injured five more. One of the killed was American and the other British, according to multiple reports.

Although the Coalition has yet to officially identify the casualties, a number of news outlets have already reported them as American and British. Fox News and Reuters cited a US military official, while Sky News cited the UK Ministry of Defence.

This was the first casualty the US military sustained in Syria, according to Fox. Five other troops were injured in the explosion on March 29. Their identities have not been made available.

A spokesman for Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR) - the official name of the US-led military operation against Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) in Iraq and Syria - confirmed in a brief statement on Thursday that "two Coalition personnel were killed and five were wounded by an improvised explosive device in Syria."

Comment: Manbij, known locally as 'Little London' because of the huge numbers of British fighters stationed there with ISIS.

How many of them simply folded into the 'SDF'?

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Eye 2

Footage shows IDF drones drop tear gas grenades on Palestinian protesters


RT
Fri, 30 Mar 2018 15:53 UTC
tear gas drone
© Mohammed Salem / ReutersAn Israeli drone drops tear gas grenades during clashes with Palestinians, during a tent city protest along the Israel border with Gaza, demanding the right to return to their homeland, east of Gaza City March 30, 2018.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has used tear gas-deploying drones to disperse huge crowds of Palestinian protesters along the Israel-Gaza border area Friday.

So far, at least 12 Palestinians have been killed and up to 500 injured in the clashes, Reuters reports. One Palestinian farmer was killed following an IDF tank volley in the early hours of Friday morning.The IDF then used a combination of live rounds and rubber-coated steel pellets to disperse the crowds demonstrating at the #GreatReturn before using its airborne tear gas system.

Comment: See Also:




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Cell Phone

CA whistleblower Christopher Wylie: Facebook is listening to you through your smartphone's microphone

Swikar Oli
National Post
Wed, 28 Mar 2018 19:43 UTC
facebook spying
Facebook could be listening to its users conversations through smartphone microphones, Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Christopher Wylie says.

He appeared in front of a committee of British parliamentarians on Tuesday, and in his nearly four hours of testimony, he used words like "fraud" and "cheat" to describe the use of Facebook data to affect the outcomes of Brexit. He also addressed the longstanding internet theory that Facebook spies on its users to shape their advertising.

Last year, a YouTube video of a man claiming Facebook gave him cat food ads because of a conversation with his girlfriend went viral. And the eavesdropping claims are regularly discussed on social media.

Conservative MP Damian Collins, who chaired the committee, asked Wylie if the rumours are true.

"There's been various speculation about the fact that Facebook can, through the Facebook app on your smartphone, listen in to what people are talking about and discussing and using that to prioritize the advertising as well," Collins said. "Other people would say, no, they don't think it's possible. It's just that the Facebook system is just so good at predicting what you're interested in that it can guess."
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Megaphone

Moscow urges restraint amid growing death toll in Gaza border clashes


Sputnik
Fri, 30 Mar 2018 20:43 UTC
Protests in Gaza Strip
© Reuters/Mohammed Salem
The Palestinian protests along the Gaza border have turned violent, with clashes erupting between the demonstrators and Israeli forces; at least 14 protesters have been killed, while more than a thousand others have been hurt.

Moscow has called on Palestinians and Israelis to exercise restraint in wake of reports that the number of those killed in the Gaza clashes is continuously rising, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in on its website. The statement was made following a meeting between Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov and senior member of Hamas, Mousa Mohammed Abu Marzook.

"A deep concern was expressed on the part of the Russian side amid the reports of the growing death toll in the Gaza Strip as a result of the Israeli army's measures to curb Palestinian protests that began on March 30 as part of the 'March of Return' campaign," the ministry stated, commenting on the meeting.

Comment: See also: Israeli army uses live fire, rubber bullets, tear gas against Palestinian protesters; 12 dead, 1,000 hurt

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Airplane

Rogue state: British authorities illegally 'inspect' Russian passenger plane after it lands in London


RT
Fri, 30 Mar 2018 17:50 UTC
Russian plane
© Reuters
Russia's Foreign Ministry has condemned the search of a Russian airliner in a London airport, calling it another provocation by the British authorities against Moscow.

The British police went aboard a Russian A-321, which arrived from Sheremetyevo airport in Moscow to the British capital on Thursday. The officers said they needed to inspect the plane without explaining the reasons for the action and demanded the crew to leave the plane, Interfax reported. They would not let the captain get out of the cabin.

"We're speaking of another provocation by the British authorities," Maria Zakharova, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, said, commenting on a search performed aboard an Aeroflot carrier plane in the British capital.
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2 + 2 = 4

The approaching trans medical backlash

Rod Dreher
The American Conservative
Fri, 30 Mar 2018 17:53 UTC
transgender backlash
© Niyazz/Shutterstock
A reader sends this horrifying story from the Sydney Morning Herald about people who had sex-change surgery earlier in life, who now regret it. Excerpts:
He will never forget the noise. Lying on the hospital trolley being pushed towards the operating theatre, he heard nothing but a primal wail. He looked back to see his younger sister sobbing, traumatised by the enormity of what he was about to do.

Andrew*, born male, was minutes away from an operation that would make him a woman. Psychiatrists said he had a female brain in a male body. Gender reassignment surgery was the only way to ease the mental torment he'd endured since adolescence.

But as the wheels squeaked towards the operating table he was struck by an unshakeable thought: "It's not right." He remembers telling the surgeon: "I think I'm doing the wrong thing, it's not right, I think we've got to stop it."

The surgeon stroked Andrew's face, telling him it was natural to feel frightened before an operation. He protested again, insisting it felt wrong. Then it went black. When he woke up he was sure the surgery had been cancelled. The romantic tales he'd read of transsexuals who awoke post-surgery feeling "reborn" convinced Andrew the operation had been halted, because he felt no different.

"Then I remember lifting up the sheets and putting my hand down and feeling it all bandaged and packed. I just started bawling my eyes out and screaming ย… I remember saying to myself, you f-king idiot, Andrew, how could you be so bloody stupid?"

Twenty years after surgery that left him feeling like a "desexed dog", the grief can still overwhelm him. Now 42, Andrew tells The Sunday Age the operation he had as a confused 21-year-old has shattered him.

Comment: I'm a pediatrician. How transgender ideology has infiltrated my field and produced large-scale child abuse

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