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Yemen's forgotten war: The tiny bodies ravaged by starvation

Yemen's starving children
© itv.com
Saida's brother Ali says all she does is cry.
Saida is 18-months-old but she looks less than half that age. Her tiny body ravaged by starvation, she lies motionless and expressionless in her brother's arms.

"We have nothing to give her," said Ali. "She has diarrhoea and she's vomiting. All she does is cry. She's just limp like this all the time."

One-year-old Younis is also wasting away. His father Omar says he is scared his son will not survive. "What can we do" he asks, "who can help us? We have nothing, nothing at all".

They come from a village of Toheita, a community of fishermen and farmers in one of Yemen's poorest districts but nothing they have suffered in the past comes close to this.

The United Nations says there are 240 children in this village alone with severe malnutrition. Many have died, starved to death within sight of one of the world's busiest shipping lanes.

Comment: Read more about the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen:
There are some 370,000 children suffering from severe malnutrition that weakens their immune system, and 1.5 million more suffer from malnutrition, according to UNICEF. The effects of war can be seen in Thawra hospital, where parents come seeking help for their starving and dying children. In April, 10-20 children a month were taken there, and figure has increased almost tenfold over the past few months. The center now sees about 120 small patients per month.

The UN delivers emergency food aid for four million people every month, O'Brien added, but they need to send even more.



Cell Phone

Women prefer smartphones to partners

woman smartphone
© Huffington Post UK
Women spend more time on their smartphones than they do with their partners, new research has found. Checking emails, sending texts and spending time on social media means women spend an average of 12 hours more a week on their phones than with a loved one, according to a survey.

If people are unable to access their phones, it can lead to stress, anger and panic, researchers claimed. On honeymoon, more than a quarter of adults admitted to using their phones to check personal emails, half said they would check social media and almost one in ten will check their work emails.

The study by Bausch + Lomb Ultra contact lenses found that a fifth of those who took part would find it harder to be without a phone for a week than their partner.

Psychologist Chireal Shallow told The Sun: "All of this interaction and addiction with our digital devices creates problems for our eyes. More than half say their eyes feel tired at the end of the day."

Comment: As society continues to move towards personal isolation and social interaction via device interface, it becomes more mechanical and removed from true experience.


Laptop

Facebook-backed school software raises privacy concerns by parents for students

basecamp
© dumbfunded
Caroline Pollock Bilicki felt uneasy about the new education program introduced this year at her children's Chicago school. Summit Basecamp, built with the help of Facebook engineers, was billed as a powerful tool that could reshape how students learn. Dozens of schools nationwide have signed up to use the program, which tailors lessons to individual students using software that tracks their progress.

But it also captures a stream of data, and Bilicki had to sign a consent form for her children to participate, allowing their personal data to be shared with companies such as Facebook and Google. That data, the form said, could include names, email addresses, schoolwork, grades and Internet activity. Summit Basecamp promised to limit its use of the information — barring it from being used, for example, to deliver targeted ads — but Bilicki agonized over whether to sign the form. "I'm not comfortable with having my kids' personally identifiable information going to I don't even know where, to be used for I'm not sure what," she said.
Summit PLP chart
© Summit Public Schools
Summit's Personalized Learning Platform shows where a student is in the year-long learning plan. Blue rectangles represent cognitive skill projects. Green rectangles represent "power focus areas," or discrete concepts for students to learn.
A joint project of Facebook and the high-performing charter-school network Summit Public Schools, Basecamp is an example of an increasingly popular education trend — data-driven "personalized learning." Its most fervent backers have framed it as the next big thing in education, re-imagining how classrooms work and allowing teachers to reach students across a wide spectrum.

Comment: Parents questioning the system and its ability to overstep are doing their job.


Microscope 2

No definitive DNA test ever conducted on Bill 'Clinton son'

Side-by-side of Bill Clinton and Danney Williams

Side-by-side of Bill Clinton and Danney Williams.
As Clinton allies fend off renewed charges that Bill Clinton is a rapist, another old accusation is resurfacing, this time from a 30-year-old black man who claims the former president is his father.

Clinton defenders contend the tabloid Star Magazine conducted a "DNA showdown" proving Bill Clinton was not Danney Williams' father, citing Star Magazine editor Phil Bunton saying at the time, "There was no match, nothing even close."

But in an interview Tuesday morning, Bunton told WND that no blood sample was obtained from Clinton and Star Magazine never published a story documenting a laboratory test.

"I don't remember ever seeing any laboratory test that was done on Clinton's DNA," Bunton told WND.

Bunton is now the owner of the Rivertown Magazine in Haverstraw, New York.

Comment: More on this story:
The man claiming to be Bill Clinton's abandoned son says that he has promised his five children that they will meet the former President - their 'grandfather' - one day.

Danney Williams, 30, uploaded a new video to YouTube on Tuesday in which he says he regularly tells his children that Clinton is his father.

'Recently I have been telling my kids that their grandfather was the president of the United States and they're amazed by it, they're like "No. Is it for real?" I tell them yes, he is my father and I will make sure you get to meet him one day,' he says in the video.

He also says that growing up, his family would receive 'seven $100 bills' each month by mail, but it all stopped when Clinton became president.

At one point in the video Williams said he got no help from the Clintons during his upbringing, but at another he says his mother regularly got 'seven $100 bills' placed in her mailbox and he received Christmas presents from the former first family.

Williams has long claimed that his prostitute mother met Clinton when she was working on the streets of Little Rock, Arkansas. He claims she told him they had sex 13 times.

He said that it's 'unfair' that Clinton has not welcomed him into his life, but that their relationship was 'common knowledge' as he grew up in Arkansas.

'I have no doubt that I am Bill Clinton's son,' he said. 'It was common knowledge, everyone in Arkansas knew.

'Everywhere I went, they pointed out: 'It's Bill Clinton's son right there. You look like him, don't you? The ears, the mouth, the chin, the teeth, the eyes, the nose'. I see him in me.

'You can see a black Bill Clinton. When I'm brushing my hair I can see Bill Clinton with waves in his hair.

'I always feel bad about him not wanting to be in my life. Was it because I was black? Was there something wrong with me? Why do you not want to be a part of me? It made me even think of sometimes suicide.'

Williams claimed to have had several near-miss attempts to speak to the Clintons. He once went to hear a speech Bill was giving at his presidential library in Little Rock but arrived too late. Just this year during a campaign stop he said he sat front and center as Hillary spoke, but she left immediately afterwards so he didn't get a chance to speak to her.

'I put myself right in front of the podium where she spoke. She was looking right at me — eye contact. I was thinking she knew who I was.'

What made it even more galling was the fact she spoke about meeting members of the Black Lives Matter movement and how she felt for them.

'It made me wonder. She says black lives matter, so why I don't matter to her?

In a separate statement Williams denied he was coming forward now for political reasons. 'This is not about politics or money,' he said. 'For me, it is about finding the truth and understanding finally who I am and where I came from.'

Turning to the camera he pleaded with Hillary Clinton to stop ignoring him.

'Hillary, please do not deny I exist, I am your stepson. Chelsea is my sister and Bill is my father.'

He then added: 'I feel bad when Hillary called black people super-predators and that we need to be brought to heel. I'm black, I'm real and I am her stepson and I deserve the love that she has given Chelsea.

'We hear my stepmother telling the nation every day that we are stronger together. They know who I am, I know who I am, I have to meet my father, I have to know that he's willing to even accept me. I have to know.



Arrow Down

Humanity fail: Are global warming alarmists disappointed Hurricane Matthew wasn't more severe?

Hurricane Matthew
© ZUMAPRESS.com/Newscom
This shot of Hurricane Matthew looks frightening, but in fact few hurricanes have hit the mainland U.S. in recent years. Is that a sign of climate change?
Chicago mayor and Clinton crony Rahm Emanuel famously said to never let a crisis go to waste in politics. In the case of Hurricane Matthew, some political operatives and global warming true believers might have wanted the crisis to be worse than it was. It would be consistent with their history.

Hurricane Matthew killed at least 30 Americans and more than 1,000 in total. Damage is estimated to be at least $5 billion.

But apparently that's not enough death and destruction for the alarmists.

Before Matthew made landfall Saturday in South Carolina, it had been more than 4,000 days since the last hurricane hit the U.S. That's 10 years, 11 months and about a week.

The alarmists were itching for a large-scale disaster because every day that went by without a hurricane, especially an epic one, meant that their predictions that man-made global warming was going to cause more and bigger storms was another day that made them look like the cons and hopelessly conned that they are.

Colosseum

Pentagon releases ominous video warning of "unavoidable" dystopian future - What do they know?

urban future
Hell best describes the future of large cities portrayed in a haunting — and rather alarming — Pentagon video obtained by the Intercept.

Titled "Megacities: Urban Future, the Emerging Complexity," the five-minute video discusses urban warfare in the not-so-distant future, and the imagined difficulties of controlling sprawling populations in the coming utter chaos.

"Megacities are complex systems where people and structures are compressed together in ways that defy both our understanding of city planning and military doctrine," a stern voice narrates over mildly ominous background music and images of present-day urban blight and violence. "These are the future breeding grounds, incubators, and launching pads for adversaries and hybrid threats."

According to the Intercept, the video, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, has been shown as part of the Pentagon's Joint Special Operations University (JSOU) course called "Advanced Special Operations Combating Terrorism," for its lesson on "The Emerging Terrorism Threat."

Boat

Refugee Crisis: The Generators, Agents Provocateurs & Opportunists (VIDEO)


Refugees in boat
The Refuges Crisis: Synthetically-Created? How, Why & Beneficiaries


In this episode of Newsbud Roundtable, Sibel Edmonds, James Corbett, and Professor Filip Kovacevic join Spiro Skouras to discuss what is being called the 'worst humanitarian crisis' of our time. Our team takes a peek behind the curtain to find the root causes for why and how millions of people are migrating from war torn countries, and who benefits. We also examine the history and context of synthetically-created refugee crises since 1951. Join this highly stimulating discussion, and bring in your thoughts and responses with your comments.


Comment: If you only have a few minutes, make sure to listen to Sibel Edmonds's closing remarks, starting at 44:22. At one point, she emphasizes this:
I want to underline one observation, which I made when I was in Turkey talking with the Syrian refugees, and when we were in Greece to a certain degree, you talk with them and I haven't heard-- we haven't heard a single person saying, 'This is caused by Assad. Bashar Assad is the reason.' ... All of them unanimously say, 'This is caused by the West.' ... You go talk with these people, you will never hear one refugee, one injured person saying this is caused by Assad.
Below is Corbett's video that Edmonds mentions. It should be shared as widely as possible:




Airplane

St. Petersburg airport in Russia reopens after bomb threat deemed a prank

St. Petersburg airport
© Igor Russak / Sputnik
The airport in St. Petersburg, Russia's second-largest city, has resumed operations after a brief evacuation due to a reported bomb threat, airport officials told RT. Officials have wrapped up their check for a potential threat, Igor Laptev, chief of the airport's press office told RT.

"At 5:30pm (14:30 GMT) the safety measures have been accomplished, airport is resuming its work."

Police and aviation security services are proceeding with safety measures. Earlier, TASS quoted the press office of the 'Airgate of northern capital', the operator of Pulkovo Airport, as saying: "Due to the information of a threat of unauthorized interference into the work of the airport, the terminal has been evacuated. The entrance and exit are temporary closed."

Pulkovo is the third-largest air hub in Russia. According to TASS figures, it received over 13 million passengers in 2015. On Thursday a plane belonging to Russia's largest air carrier, Aeroflot, was checked by bomb disposal experts in Geneva, Switzerland, after a bomb threat was received. However it later turned out the incident was a prank with no real explosive device onboard the aircraft.

Pirates

Daesh uncovers alleged rebellion in Mosul, executes 58 of their own as traitors

isis
© Khalil Ashawi / Reuters
Islamic State militants in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul have crushed a rebellion led by one of the group's own commanders, Iraqi security officials and sources within the city told Reuters.

Fifty-eight people suspected of taking part in the plot were executed by Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) after the plot was uncovered last week, according to residents, who say they were drowned and then buried in a mass grave.

Although Reuters has not named the alleged plot leader, fearing his family could be placed at risk, he is thought to be a local aide of IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. It is believed the aim of the plot was to degrade Mosul's defenses ahead of the Iraqi government's attempt to liberate the city, which was seized by jihadist militants in the summer of 2014.

Hisham al-Hashimi, an IS expert who advises the Baghdad government, believes the plotters were exposed after one of them was caught with a message about weapons on his phone and who later confessed under interrogation to the plan to support the Iraqi Army advance.


Comment: There's a whole lot of "believing" going on in the above narrative. So basically, all we know is that Daesh allegedly executed 58 of their own.


Comment: See also: Battle for Mosul: More than 60,000 Iraqi troops preparing


Bizarro Earth

Batman takes to the streets to fight off 'killer clowns' in UK

UK batman killer clowns
© Patrick Baz / AFP
An unnamed British man has been dressing up as Batman to fight off 'killer clowns,' after the craze led to a series of injuries and seriously scared children.

The man, who is offering his services on the Facebook page Cumbria Superheroes, has refused to identify himself, but has been caught on camera chasing after another man dressed as a clown.

He later published a video telling local children they did not need to be afraid as he was now there to protect them.

"As for you clowns, if you want to scare someone, why don't you try and scare me?" he added.

"The clowns are giving kids sleepless nights due to their antics and, well, that's just really miffed Batman," said the Cumbrian.

A young boy reportedly used his mother's Facebook account to thank him for his actions, saying: "Hi Batman my name is [redacted]... I have been scared of this clown situation (school told us about it yesterday)... I seen on my mammy fb [Facebook] that u caught the clown this means I can go to school and not be scared, thank you for your efforts."


Comment: 'Fantasy' appears to be merging with reality at an alarming rate. 'Killer clowns' run around like idiots, zombies eat peoples' faces, while Godzilla and King Kong duke it out during a 'presidential' debate. Welcome to bizarro world, folks!