Society's ChildS


Fire

Back at it: Gazprom will not start March gas deliveries to Ukraine's Naftogaz after negotiations fail


RT
Thu, 01 Mar 2018 18:53 UTC
Gazprom building
© Maksim Blinov / Sputnik
Russian state-run gas giant Gazprom will not start shipments of natural gas to Ukraine's Naftogaz starting March 1 after sides failed to reach an agreement, the company's deputy chairman, Alexander Medvedev, told journalists.

Medvedev said that Gazprom had refunded the entire prepayment received from Ukrainian state gas monopoly Naftogaz for the gas that was to be delivered this month. The decision came as the sides reportedly failed to extend a supplemental agreement to the current gas contract.

Comment: Ukraine's multi-year mismanagement of its responsibilities as a energy supplier to its own people and to its European clients is criminal.

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Eye 1

Ex-soldier jailed for 28 years after murdering elderly stranger walking his dog


RT
Thu, 01 Mar 2018 18:20 UTC
murderer selfie
© Norfolk Constabulary
An ex-soldier has been jailed for life after he brutally slashed a total stranger, and abandoned his body in nearby heathland. The attack was so violent that police initially thought the victim had been mauled by an animal.

When handing down the life sentence to Alexander Palmer, Justice Goose QC described the 24-year old's premeditated attack as inflicting "savage and brutal" violence on 83-year-old grandfather Peter Wrighton. Palmer will serve a minimum of 28 years.

The sentencing, held at Nottingham Crown Court on Thursday, brings a conclusion to an eight-day trial. It took a jury of four men and eight women only 44 minutes to find Palmer guilty of the brutal murder of the elderly dogwalker. The court heard that Palmer suffered mental health problems after being attacked by fellow soldiers on a night out in Plymouth in 2013.

Comment: The brutality of the murder combined with the premeditation points to a combination of both disorganized and organized killing. These are terms coined by the FBI serial killer profiler Robert Ressler and can be further explored in his book, Whoever Fights Monsters. The disorganization of the brutality does point to the possibility of some mental illness, however the premeditation along with a precipitating event (being attacked by fellow soldiers) and fantasy point in the direction of Palmer also having an underlying criminal mind. The criminal mind derives excitement out of exploiting vulnerability to build their own maniacal sense of power, as can be seen in Palmer's murder of an elderly man walking his dog. A minimum sentence of 28 years does not seem just.

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Info

Russian Defense Minister Shoigu: 5th-gen Russian Su-57 fighters performed 2 days of combat tests in Syria


RT
Thu, 01 Mar 2018 20:32 UTC
Russian Su-57 fighters
© Evgeny Biyatov / SputnikRussian Su-57 fighters
Following media speculation about Russia's fifth-generation Su-57 fighter jets, Russia's defense minister has confirmed two were deployed for tests in Syria. However, they were there for just two days for combat and other tests.

"They really were there. Not for long, just two days. Over this time they conducted a trial program, including a combat trial," Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu told journalists on Thursday.

"There were two jets which were accompanied by laboratory aircraft, and planes which monitored the work of weapon systems."
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Gear

CIA whistleblower who faced reprisals after filing complaints against incompetent chief has case dismissed


RT
Thu, 01 Mar 2018 19:09 UTC
Central intelligence agency CIA
© Larry Downing / Reuters
A US federal judge dismissed a case from a CIA employee who claimed he experienced reprisals when he complained about his chief running their base as "college dorm." His attorney warns the ruling could deter whistleblowers.

The case centers on a plaintiff, given the pseudonym James Pars, who claims he clashed with his superior and faced reprisals that tarnished his career. The CIA's Inspector General's Office failed to investigate adequately when he reported his experiences, Pars alleges.

However, Federal Judge Trevor McFadden ruled in Washington on Wednesday that Pars' lawsuit failed to establish that the CIA had a legal obligation to conduct an inquiry.
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Bad Guys

Pakistani court orders list of names to be handed over of people who left Islam


RT
Thu, 01 Mar 2018 19:00 UTC
woman muslim burka
© Leonhard Foeger / Reuters
A Pakistani court has ordered the citizen database to hand over a list of an estimated 10,000 people believed to have requested a change of religion. The petition is the latest move by mainstream Muslims to criminalize Qadianism.

On Monday, Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui, of the Islamabad High Court (IHC), ordered Pakistan's Citizen Authority (NADRA) provide information on residents who reportedly changed their religion from Islam to Qadianism. Qadiani, or Ahmadi Muslims are believers of a minority Islamic sect considered heretical by other, mainstream, Muslims.

The Ahmadi believe that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, and not Mohammed, was the last prophet chosen by Allah and insist they are Muslim with as much right to practice their faith in Pakistan as other people.
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Propaganda

2002 2.0: New York Times still shilling for war with bogus WMD claims


Moon of Alabama
Wed, 28 Feb 2018 18:49 UTC
new york times
New York Times, September 8 2002
U.S. Says Hussein Intensifies Quest For A-Bomb Parts
Iraq has stepped up its quest for nuclear weapons and has embarked on a worldwide hunt for materials to make an atomic bomb, Bush administration officials said today.

In the last 14 months, Iraq has sought to buy thousands of specially designed aluminum tubes, which American officials believe were intended as components of centrifuges to enrich uranium. American officials said several efforts to arrange the shipment of the aluminum tubes were blocked or intercepted but declined to say, citing the sensitivity of the intelligence, where they came from or how they were stopped.
The infamous aluminum tubes Iraq sought to buy from Italy were for short range rockets, not for uranium enrichment centrifuges as the Bush administration claimed. That was a fact well known to several U.S. agencies like the Energy and State Departments. But the claim, first propagandized by the NY Times, was repeated by then President Bush in a speech to the UN and became a main basis for the war on Iraq. The Knight-Ridder (now McClatchy) Washington Bureau, but not the NY Times, reported about the many doubts experts had about such Weapon of Mass Destruction claims.
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Display

Once hailed as "NSA proof", Tor software project exposed receiving almost 100% of funding from US government


RT
Thu, 01 Mar 2018 18:21 UTC
Snowden protester
© Eric Thayer / ReutersA woman holds up a sign at a support rally for Edward Snowden, a former contractor at the National Security Agency (NSA), in New York June 19, 2013.
The Tor Project, hailed as a bulwark against the encroaching surveillance state, has received funding from US government agency the BBG and cooperates with intelligence agencies, newly released documents reveal.

Tor, free software which enables anonymous communication over the internet, is a "privatized extension of the very same government that it claimed to be fighting," claims journalist Yasha Levine, who obtained 2,500 pages of correspondence about the project via Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

Hailed as "NSA-proof" and used by journalists and whistleblowers alike to protect themselves and their sources from government retribution, Tor is painted in an entirely new light in the FOIA documents, which reveal cooperation between the software's developers and US government agencies.

Comment: There's really no such thing as 'NSA proof' in today's tech. The United States has its hands in pretty much every cookie jar, and as noted above it is often used as a means of influencing chaos in foreign countries (while letting hypocritical accusation fly about Russia and China). See the following article for a specific example of how the US attempted to use tech to cause unrest in Cuba: Remember that time the US used a secret social media operation to stir unrest and undermine the Cuban government?

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Attention

Four civilians killed as militants open fire on residents attempting to flee Eastern Ghouta


RT
Thu, 01 Mar 2018 18:11 UTC
Eastern Ghouta Damascus Syria
© Hamza AL-Ajweh / AFP
Four civilians died as militants opened fire preventing them from fleeing Eastern Ghouta, the Russian Center for Reconciliation in Syria said. It added that "desperate civilians" killed three "bandits" in subsequent clashes.

Militants are preventing civilians from fleeing besieged Eastern Ghouta and sabotage humanitarian operation there, Major General Vladimir Zolotukhin, a spokesman for the Russian Center for Reconciliation in Syria, told journalists on Thursday.

The official also revealed that four people were killed in Wednesday's shooting, when the Jaysh al-Islam militants operating in Douma opened fire on more than 300 civilians who wanted to leave the area through the humanitarian corridor.

"The reality of these threats [that militants forbid people to leave through the humanitarian corridors] is confirmed by yesterday's shelling of about 300 local residents protesting in Douma. According to updated information, four people were killed during this spontaneous protest," Zolotukhin said.

Comment: See also:

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Jet2

Pentagon wants to know true price tag of F-35, the world's most expensive weapon


RT
Thu, 01 Mar 2018 17:41 UTC
F-35
© Daniel Hughes / Reuters
The top official overseeing the F-35 program has asked for the true price tag of the world's most expensive weapon in a push to make the fighter jet cheaper.

"To better inform our target glide path, I want to know what it truly costs to produce the aircraft. The number of quality escapes and what we call production line defects needs to get better," said Vice Admiral Mat Winter, who leads the F-35 Joint Program Office, as quoted by CNBC.
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War Whore

In spite of own body cam catching him rob a man, "thieving idiot" Florida cop gets no jail

Matt Agorist
The Free Thuoght Project
Thu, 01 Mar 2018 17:40 UTC
cop caught body cam robbery
© The Free Thought Project
This cop's actions were so egregious that his own sheriff called him a "thieving idiot," however, he will not spend a single day in jail in spite of being caught on video robbing a man.

Body cams, according to some studies, may serve to reduce corruption and violence from certain police officers. However, as a body cam video out of Florida illustrates, a camera on this cop didn't even deter his desire to commit theft. Now, we know why he felt like he could record himself stealing -- he would get away with it.

Deputy John Braman, formerly with the Volusia County Sheriff's Office, was charged last year after he was caught stealing money from a man he arrested.

According to the Daytona Beach News-Journal, the 35-year-old former deputy recently entered no contest pleas to petty theft, official misconduct and grand theft for the crimes he recorded himself committing. He will get no jail time.

Comment: This is not a 'bad apple' situation. The sense of entitlement is pervasive in policing today. And why not? The chance of being charged let alone prosecuted is almost infinitesimal.

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