Society's ChildS


Pistol

Officials call for probe after 'arbitrary & cruel' Arkansas execution

Jon Herskovitz
Yahoo News
Mon, 01 May 2017 13:33 UTC
Death row inmate Kenneth Williams
Death row inmate Kenneth Williams
A lawyer for an executed Arkansas death row inmate asked the state on Friday to investigate why his client coughed and convulsed on a death chamber gurney, saying a lethal injection drug may have been the cause.

A separate group of lawyers for Arkansas death row inmates asked a federal court to preserve evidence in the four executions Arkansas held over eight days this month, saying in a lawsuit that the state's protocols "did not prevent an execution by torture."

Arkansas, which had not held an execution in 12 years, concluded its executions series by putting to death Kenneth Williams on Thursday night. Accounts of his execution raised fresh concerns about whether the sedative midazolam, a Valium-like drug, is effective in lethal injection mixes.

Comment: Further reading: Contrasting accounts of Arkansas execution from witnesses inside the death chamber

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Info

Pope Francis: Future of humanity depends on peaceful resolution of N. Korean crisis


RT
Mon, 01 May 2017 12:46 UTC
Pope Francis
© Alessandro Bianchi / ReutersPope Francis
Pope Francis has intervened in the Korean crisis, urging Washington and Pyongyang to come to a peaceful solution for the sake of humanity. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump warned that he "would not be happy" if North Korea conducts another nuclear test.

Noting that the "situation has become too hot" in the Korean peninsula, Pope Francis said that the world is on the brink of war, which can only be averted through diplomacy.

"We are talking about the future of humanity. Today, a widespread war would destroy - I would not say half of humanity - but a good part of humanity, and of culture, everything, everything," Francis said Saturday. "It would be terrible. I don't think that humanity today would be able to withstand it."

Comment: The US has kicked the global bee's nest for decades, and shows no signs of stopping. Though Pope Francis was right when he said, "The U.S. president and other leaders [should] use diplomacy and negotiation because it's the future of humanity," the future of humanity has hung in the balance for decades. The endless stream of death, misery, and lies proves the West has chosen a dark path, and with every passing day it seems the time for positive change & 'peaceful resolution' has slipped away.

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Pistol

1 victim and suspect dead, 6 critical in San Diego pool-party shooting


RT
Mon, 01 May 2017 12:04 UTC
San Diego pool shooting
© karthik reddy / YouTube
At least one woman is dead and six people are in critical condition after a man opened fire at a poolside party at an apartment complex in San Diego, California, according to the local police chief.

Police confronted the gunman and fatally shot him while he was trying to reload his weapon. The suspect has been identified.

The incident happened 6.10pm local time at the La Jolla Crossroads Apartments in La Jolla, California, when a white male wearing brown shorts and armed with a gun started shooting those at the pool.
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Fire

Police report: Swedish largest Shiite Mosque set on fire in Stockholm


Sputnik
Mon, 01 May 2017 11:22 UTC
Sweden's largest Shiite Imam Ali mosque was set on fire
© AFP 2017/ TT NEWS AGENCY / PONTUS STENBERGSmoke rises from the interior of a destroyed cellar mosque as a firefighter walks in front of the building
Sweden's largest Shiite Imam Ali mosque, located in the northern Stockholm, was set on fire, local police reported Monday.

"We suspect that [the mosque] was set on fire from outside," police spokesman Lars Bystrom was quoted as saying by the Swedish television (SVT).

The fire in the mosque, located in Jarfalla municipality, was registered late on Sunday.
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Star of David

Clashes flare in al-Arroub refugee camp as Israeli soldiers attack schoolchildren


The Palestinian Information Center
Mon, 01 May 2017 11:10 UTC
Al-Arroub refugee camp
Clashes broke out on Sunday morning between Palestinian anti-occupation youth and the Israeli army near the main entrance to al-Arroub refugee camp, north of al-Khalil.

Reporting from the scene, a PIC news correspondent said the Israeli occupation forces attacked Palestinian schoolchildren with randomly-shot spates of teargas canisters.

Several young learners choked on teargas in the process and received urgent field treatment.

Comment: See also: IDF raids refugee camp in West Bank, Palestinian teen killed, dozens injured in clashes

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Attention

Israeli bulldozers cut off water supply to 3,500 Palestinians


Middle East Monitor
Fri, 28 Apr 2017 09:34 UTC
An Israeli bulldozer demolishes a Palestinian house
© Wisam Hashlamoun/Apa ImagesAn Israeli bulldozer demolishes a Palestinian house
Israeli bulldozers destroyed all the water pipelines providing services to the village of Bardala yesterday morning in the northern occupied West Bank district of Tubas.

Mutaz Bisharat, a Palestinian official who monitors settlement activity in the Jordan Valley, told Ma'an that four Israeli bulldozers, escorted by Israeli military jeeps and officials from Israel's Civil Administration, destroyed all the main lines providing Bardala with water, leaving some 3,500 residents of the village without access to any water.

Comment: Further reading:

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Star of David

The IDF soldiers Israel has declared to be 'enemies of the state'

Bethan McKernan
The Independent
Sat, 29 Apr 2017 02:31 UTC
IDF soldiers palestine
© Mohamad Torokman / Reuters (file photo)
German foreign minister barred from talks with Netanyahu government after making time to meet anti-occupation veterans' group Breaking the Silence

"Silence is not a specifically Israeli disease. It's a human epidemic. When you don't look well you don't spend too many hours in front of the mirror," Yahuda Shaul, Israel Defence Force (IDF) veteran and founder of Breaking the Silence says.

"The thing is it's more personal here. The walls of silence and denial need to be higher, thicker."

Shaul is used to criticism from the Israeli authorities - but this week's comments from deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely about his anti-occupation NGO, which shares testimonies from IDF soldiers about their service, made waves internationally.

Hotovely, a member of the far-right Likud party in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition, told Army Radio on Wednesday that Breaking the Silence was "an enemy of Israel" akin to Gaza's militant group Hamas.
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Alarm Clock

Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Female genital mutilation and what we're really talking about beneath the weasel words 'genital cutting'

Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Fox News
Fri, 28 Apr 2017 18:30 UTC
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
© Courtesy AHA Foundation

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, founder, the AHA Foundation
The recent news that a grand jury in Michigan has indicted three people, including two doctors, for female genital mutilation is a welcome development. As the first ever prosecutions of this crime in the United States, the case shines much needed light on an underground human rights abuse that has been going on for too long. Female genital mutilation has been deliberately covered up by those practicing it here or sending their daughters overseas during summer break to be mutilated outside of the law.

Yet, ham-fisted attempts to appear culturally sensitive by the likes of the New York Times reporting on this story will push these issues underground once more. The newspaper's Health and Science Editor wrote that referring to female genital mutilation as 'genital cutting' is less 'culturally loaded' and will help to bridge a gap between those who practice FGM and those who campaign against it. In her eyes it's a case of Africa vs. the West.

As an African who was subjected to FGM, now living in the West, allow me to help bridge that gap by explaining what we're really talking about beneath the weasel words 'genital cutting'.
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Bad Guys

Boycotting works: Leaked report highlights Israel lobby's anti-BDS failures and backfires

Ali Abunimah
The Electronic Intifada
Fri, 28 Apr 2017 19:05 UTC
Gidi Grinstein Reut institute anti-BDS israel
The Reut Institute, founded by former government advisor Gidi Grinstein, has conceded in a secret report jointly prepared with the ADL that Israel’s efforts to thwart the Palestine solidarity movement have failed. (via Facebook)
Key Israel lobby groups have conceded that they have failed to counter the Palestine solidarity movement, despite vastly increasing their spending. The admission is contained in a secret report that The Electronic Intifada has obtained.

The report, published here in full for the first time, outlines Israel's failure to stem the "impressive growth" and "significant successes" of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement for Palestinian rights.

It also sets out strategies, endorsed by the Israeli government, aimed at reversing the deterioration in Israel's position.

Comment: Israel appears to be growing nervous as the BDS movement continues to gain in popularly, with more and more people waking up to the fact that Israel is a genocidal apartheid state.

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Stock Down

Canada's largest alternative mortgage lender just had a bank run and is on edge of collapse

Tyler Durden
Zerohedge
Sat, 29 Apr 2017 04:33 UTC
Home Capital Group
After two years of recurring warnings (both on this website and elsewhere) that Canada's largest alternative (i.e., non-bank) mortgage lender is fundamentally insolvent, kept alive only courtesy of the Canadian housing bubble which until last week had managed to lift all boats, Home Capital Group suffered a spectacular spectacular implosion last week when its stock price crashed by the most on record after HCG revealed that it had taken out an emergency $2 billion line of credit from an unnamed counterparty with an effective rate as high as 22.5%, indicative of a business model on the verge of collapse .

Or, as we put it, Canada just experienced its very own "New Century" moment.

One day later, it emerged that the lender behind HCG's (pre-petition) rescue loan was none other than the Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan (HOOPP). As Bloomberg reported, the Toronto-based pension plan - which represented more than 321,000 healthcare workers in Ontario - gave the struggling Canadian mortgage lender the loan to shore up liquidity as it faces a run on deposits amid a probe by the provincial securities regulator. Home Capital had also retained RBC Capital Markets and BMO Capital Markets to advise on "strategic options" after it secured the loan.
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