Society's ChildS


Bomb

Germany conducting its biggest evacuation during Christmas due to huge British WWII bomb


RT
Fri, 23 Dec 2016 15:38 UTC
unexploded WWII 1.8-ton bomb in Germany
© AugsburgerAllgemeine / Twitter
The 54,000 residents of Augsburg, Bavaria, will not spend Christmas at home, but as evacuees, while sappers defuse an unexploded 1.8-ton bomb dropped by the British in WWII. It will be the biggest evacuation in post-war German history.

The bomb dropped by the British Air Force back in the 1940s was found during construction work, Augsburger Allgemeine newspaper reported, citing a spokesman from the city council.

The evacuation and defusing of the device will take place during Christmas, which falls on the weekend this year. Authorities say the hazardous area has a radius of 1.5km, meaning that about 54,000 people from 32,000 households will have to spend Christmas away from home.
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Dominoes

Electors in Washington state fined $1,000 for going against pledge after not voting for Killary


RT
Fri, 23 Dec 2016 15:40 UTC
electoral college
© Jonathan Drake / Reuters
Four Washington state electors who broke their pledge to vote for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton are each being fined $1,000, after 3 chose to vote for ex-Secretary of State Colin Powell, and one for Native American tribal elder Faith Spotted Eagle.

They will all be fined next week, and have 60 days to pay, according to the spokesman for Washington Secretary of State Kim Wyman, who spoke to the AP. He added that an appeals process is being formulated in case of a challenge.

This is the first time anything like this has happened in the state in 40 years, when one elector went rogue and voted for Ronald Reagan instead of Gerald Ford, who won in Washington but lost the general election to Democratic candidate Jimmy Carter in 1976. It was that year that the penalties for going rogue were signed into law, but 2016 is the first year they will be enforced.

This time, one third of the electors went rogue in an act of symbolic protest, giving Clinton eight votes, instead of the 12 she had secured, thus making Washington the leading state in so-called 'faithless electors.' The vast majority of the Electoral College voted as expected, sealing Donald Trump's victory, with 304 but two votes to Clinton's 227. It takes 270 votes to win the presidency.
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Bad Guys

Afriqiyah Airways plane hijacked, lands in Malta, hijackers release 109 passengers and demand creation of 'pro-Gaddafi party'


RT
Thu, 22 Dec 2016 22:47 UTC
malta airport hijacking
© Darrin Zammit-Lupi / ReutersMaltese troops survey a hijacked Libyan Afriqiyah Airways Airbus A320 on the runway at Malta Airport, December 23, 2016
At least 109 passengers have been released from the Afriqiyah Airways Airbus A320 in Malta, after two hijackers from the pro-Gaddafi group Al Fatah Al Gadida seized control of the plane in Libya.

It's understood the plane was making an internal flight from Sebha to Tripoli before it was diverted to Malta International Airport. Armed soldiers then surrounded it on the runway.

Libyan and Maltese authorities are continuing negotiations with the hijackers, while Malta-based journalist Saviour Balzan tweeted that the hijackers agreed to let the passengers go and to give up their weapons.

Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat confirmed in a series of tweets the gradual release of the 118 passengers and crew from the plane. It remains unclear at this stage, however, the exact number of people still on board.
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Handcuffs

Melbourne: Christmas terrorist plot foiled, ISIS-inspired suspects arrested


RT
Fri, 23 Dec 2016 10:11 UTC
Melbourne, Australia
© David Gray / Reuters / ReutersMelbourne, Australia
Australian authorities have foiled a "very substantial terrorist plot", arresting a number of suspects who allegedly plotted a "multi-mode attack" involving guns and improvised explosives in central Melbourne over the Christmas holidays.

Seven people were detained following overnight raids by Victoria Police, the Australian Federal Police and Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) on Friday. Five people are still in custody and are answering questions about the alleged terrorist plot.


"Overnight our police and security agencies have disrupted a very substantial terrorist plot," Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said at a press conference.

Police believe that Islamic State/(IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL)-inspired terrorists wanted to use explosives and other weapons on Christmas Day to target locations in the city, including St Paul's Cathedral, Federation Square and Flinders Street Station.


"What they have uncovered is a plot to explode improvised explosive devices in central Melbourne in the area of Federation Square, on or about Christmas Day," Turnbull noted.
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Cardboard Box

Millennials refuse to grow up: Number of young adults living at home with mom reaches 75-year high

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Wed, 21 Dec 2016 01:28 UTC
economic recovery
Millennials finally get to claim a trophy for an achievement they actually earned (no participation medals here)...that's right, Millennials have officially set a 75-year record for highest percentage of young adults living at home with mom. At just under 40%, Millennials are barely shy of the all-time record of 40.9% set in 1940, after the end of the Great Depression. For once, we have every confidence that our young snowflakes will excel in crushing this longstanding record. Per the Wall Street Journal:
Almost 40% of young Americans were living with their parents, siblings or other relatives in 2015, the largest percentage since 1940, according to an analysis of census data by real estate tracker Trulia.

Despite a rebounding economy and recent job growth, the share of those between the ages of 18 and 34 doubling up with parents or other family members has been rising since 2005. Back then, before the start of the last recession, roughly one out of three were living with family.

The trend runs counter to that of previous economic cycles, when after a recession-related spike, the number of younger Americans living with relatives declined as the economy improved.
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Gold Seal

Best of the Web: East Aleppo Diaries: Testimony from Hanano Shatters Corporate Fake News

Vanessa Beeley
21st Century Wire
Thu, 22 Dec 2016 22:54 UTC
hanano
© Vanessa BeeleyClean water supplies are replenished in recently liberated East Aleppo district of Hanano.
"Before it was hell, now we can move forward and breathe again" ~ Mohammed, from Hanano

On the 11th December 2016 I visited Hanano in East Aleppo. Hanano had been liberated days previously by the Syrian Arab Army and allies including Hezbollah and Russia. Hanano had been under a Nusra Front [Al Qaeda] terrorist regime for the last, almost, five years.

The testimonies we filmed testified to starvation, wholesale deprivation of humanitarian aid, summary executions, torture and the use of civilians as human shields. Nusra Front were the overlord of the district, controlling an estimated 22 militant brigades funded, equipped and armed by NATO and Gulf states and condemning the Syrian civilians to a life of fear and imprisonment in their own homes.

Women were married, raped and discarded en masse, children were imprisoned and anyone caught supporting the Syrian Government could be executed or imprisoned & tortured. The very antithesis of the narrative being run by the corporate media for the entire duration of the almost five years of wholesale suffering endured by both West and East Aleppo, carved into two and targeted by the Nusra Front-led terrorists and militants.
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Stop

Stop blaming the Russians: Knee-jerk reactions of 'progressives' are stampeding the US toward McCarthyism 2.0

Norman Solomon
Counterpunch
Wed, 21 Dec 2016 00:00 UTC
putin blaming, russian hacking
This week began with a mass email from the head of the Democratic National Committee, who declared: "By now, Americans know beyond any reasonable doubt that the Russian government orchestrated a series of cyberattacks on political campaigns and organizations over the past two years and used stolen information to influence the presidential campaign and congressional races." DNC chair Donna Brazile went on: "The integrity of our elections is too important for Congress to refuse to take these attacks seriously."

The importance of election integrity had eluded Brazile when she was a regular on CNN, posing as neutral in the Clinton-Sanders battle. "Brazile is not apologizing for leaking CNN debate questions and topics to the Hillary Clinton campaign during the Democratic primary," the Washington Post reported last month. "Her only regret, it seems, is that she got caught."

Many big factors affect any presidential race, and the Russian government may have tried to be one of them for the 2016 election — though it's hardly the slam dunk that agencies like the CIA and U.S. mass media are now claiming. But in any event, this month it has become routine for a lot of progressive organizations and individuals to descend into a dangerous mode of partisan flackery.
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Family

Aleppo women recall atrocities at the hands of terrorists


Sputnik
Thu, 22 Dec 2016 22:48 UTC
Woman from Aleppo
© Sputnik/ Nour Melhem
A resident of eastern Aleppo spoke with Sputnik Arabic sharing her horrifying ordeal of living in the city during the terrorist's reign.

Covering her face with a handkerchief the young woman said that the terrorists made her and other women's life a living hell. Horrifying abuse such as rape, forced marriage, murder and stoning to death were a part of life under the terrorist's control.

"If a woman was going to marry a man who did not belong to a terrorist organization, she was beaten, put in a pit or prison, she could get stoned in a public square or executed by beheading."
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Attention

Thousands queue for food parcels in Dublin city centre

Kitty Holland
Irish Times
Thu, 22 Dec 2016 18:47 UTC
About 3,000 people, including elderly people and children, queue for Christmas food parcels at the Capuchin Centre in Dublin
© Nick Bradshaw
About 3,000 people, including elderly people and children, queue for Christmas food parcels at the Capuchin Centre in Dublin
Danny, an elderly man from Fairview in Dublin, will share his food parcel on Christmas Day with a neighbour who also lives alone.

"He has a bad hip so he couldn't come here today. I'll share mine with him," he smiles.

Danny, who doesn't want to give his surname, is one of more than 3,000 people queueing for Christmas food parcels at the Capuchin Centre in Dublin on Thursday.

The queue, which includes elderly people and young children, began about 6am. By 9.30am it stretches from the door of the centre's Bow Street entrance down the street, around the corner and along May Lane reaching Church Street.

Br Kevin Crowley, who runs the centre, believes the queue is "bigger than last year". A number of gardaí, present because of the numbers, are in good humour and chatting with those queueing.

Comment: Meanwhile in the UK they've disbanded the unit for preventing child poverty. Even so, they can lie about the economy and the wars being waged worldwide, but with one in four children in poverty in the UK, and rising, this is one lie the establishment will have trouble covering up:

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Rose

Something to celebrate: Historic Syrian train travels from Damascus marking return to civilian life


Sputnik
Thu, 22 Dec 2016 22:24 UTC
view of damascus
© Hassan Ammar/Associated Press
A historic Syrian train which was built in 1896 left Damascus and traveled to the city's suburbs on Wednesday. The capital was liberated from the terrorists and now after five years, the railroad has been repaired and the locomotive made its journey.

The head of the public institution Hejaz Railway, engineer Husein Muhammed Ali said in an interview with Sputnik Arabic that this locomotive is very special for the Syrians and it is special for the people of Damascus.

The foundation started its work on the launch of the locomotive after the liberation of Kudisa and al-Hama districts to the west of the capital.

According to Husayn Muhammad, 150 residents of the city for the first time in the last 5 years were able to travel 15 kilometers from Damascus to the station of al-Hama.

In the future it is planned to extend the route of the train all the way to the city of ez-Zabadani and Lebanon.


The historic train has only 3 carriages with wooden benches, which are loved by many generations of Syrians.

The gardens of al-Rabwah, the settlement of al-Hama and the oasis of al-Khadra, through which the locomotive passes, are the traditional places of recreation for the citizens of the capital, where they like to go on a picnic.

The whistle of the locomotive, which was heard by the Syrians after many years has become a symbol pointing to the return of civilian life to the country. Children came running outside to greet their old friend as the train made the journey to its destination
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