Society's ChildS


Alarm Clock

3 platypuses found dead at Australian botanical gardens, 2 decapitated

Blair Thomson
The Daily Advertiser
Mon, 10 Apr 2017 18:15 UTC
Platypus swimming
© The Daily Advertiser
Wildlife authorities are investigating an apparent case of animal cruelty in Albury, with three platypuses found dead in the botanic gardens.

Two were found decapitated, with a sharp object appearing to have been used.

Wildlife Information Rescue and Education Service Murray River secretary Hazel Cook said they had been found over the past five weeks in different areas of the gardens, with the most recent found last Wednesday.

"There definitely was no fox involved," she said.

"That's the first thing we thought everyone would think, but we took it to a local vet and had them check it out.
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Heart - Black

Chicago father & son shoot each other in argument over who should walk the dog


RT
Mon, 10 Apr 2017 15:01 UTC
Gun fight
© Reuters
A Chicago, Illinois father was wounded after he fatally shot his son when an argument escalated into a gunfight over who should walk the dog.

Chicago Police said the "verbal altercation" turned violent in the city's South Side neighborhood when they responded to a call early Sunday morning.

Both men suffered multiple gunshot wounds as they exchanged fire with each other, before being taken to Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, police said.

Donald Johnson, 22, who lived in the neighborhood, was pronounced dead. The older man, 43, was listed in critical condition.

Comment: See also: Chicago cop who killed teen in 'execution-style murder' indicted on 16 new charges

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Attention

Chinese security services are offering bounteous rewards up to $73k per spy for tip-offs on 'foreign agents'


RT
Mon, 10 Apr 2017 10:29 UTC
Spy in Beijing
© Ryan McVay / Getty Images
Chinese security services are offering bounteous rewards - ranging from 10,000 to 500,000 yuan (US$1,450 to $72,440) - to citizens for providing vital information on suspected foreign espionage activities, state media reveal.

The Beijing City National Security Bureau is looking for reports of suspected spy activities and offering rewards for tip-offs which prove legitimate.

"Foreign intelligence organs and other hostile forces have also seized the opportunity to sabotage our country through political infiltration, division and subversion, stealing secrets and collusion," Reuters quotes the official Beijing Daily newspaper's Monday report.

The new measures are required as foreign spy activities are an "unfortunate side effect" of Chinese reforms and opening up to the world, the newspaper said, according to Reuters. The capital city, Beijing, is believed to be a hotspot for spies from all over the world, and needs new measures to protect its secrets from suspicious overseas organizations and personnel.
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TV

Jeremy Scahill rips into CNN: 'If Fareed Zakaria could have sex with Trump's missile strike, he would'


Russia Insider
Mon, 10 Apr 2017 14:38 UTC
cnn broadcast
There are journalists and there are stenographers for the regime. And they don't like each other much. The journalists make stenographers look bad, and the stenographers, well, they help kill people.

You can see the animosity in this video as CNN speaks to Jeremy Scahill and he goes straight for their dark hearts:

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Bullseye

Russia slaps social media giant Facebook with 'Google Tax'


RT
Mon, 10 Apr 2017 11:41 UTC
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg
© Stephen Lam / FacebookFacebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
Social media giant Facebook has joined the list of IT firms registered with Russia's Federal Tax Service as a foreign company selling electronic content in Russia.

Beginning April 25, the California-based company will start paying 18 percent value added tax (VAT), known as the 'Google tax' in Russia, reports business daily Vedomosti.

Over a hundred foreign corporations have already registered in Russia. They include Google, Apple, Microsoft, LinkedIn, Netflix, Bloomberg, the Financial Times, and Turkish payment service provider Payby.me. English professional football club Chelsea, also had to register due to video content distribution.

Roughly half of the registered firms sell software and computer games with 30 percent of corporations distributing music content as well as movies and books, according to an official as quoted by the daily.
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Attention

'There aren't words to describe what happened': Residents of Syrian village share details of US strike with RT (VIDEO)


RT
Mon, 10 Apr 2017 11:51 UTC
Syrian village
They live in a village near the Syrian Shayrat airfield, just hit by US missiles. Windows shattered, panic among children, heavy weaponry raining on them - the villagers told RT about their blood-chilling experience.

Villagers were the majority of victims of the US strike on the Shayrat Airbase on April 6, portrayed as retaliation against the Bashar Assad government, according to the governor of Homs Talal al-Barazi. A total of 14 people including nine innocent civilians were killed in the US missile attack.

A total of 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles were launched from US Navy ships in the Eastern Mediterranean, but only 23 of them reached their target, the Russian Defense Ministry has revealed. Some of the stray missiles apparently hit villages in the surrounding area.

Ruptly's crew has talked to the wife of a soldier who was killed in the attack and also to local villagers who showed the aftermath of the American attack.


Comment: See also: Tulsi Gabbard under fire after refusing to accept 'Assad did chemical attack' without evidence

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Snakes in Suits

Fox News to investigate yet another sexual harassment claim against Bill O'Reilly

John McCrank
Yahoo! News
Mon, 10 Apr 2017 13:15 UTC
Bill O'Reilly
© Reuters/Brendan McDermid/File Photo
Fox News parent Twenty-First Century Fox Inc said on Sunday it will investigate a sexual harassment claim against TV anchor Bill O'Reilly, who has seen several companies pull their ads from his top-rated news show in the past week.

The investigation comes after a complaint was phoned in to the network's corporate hotline last week by Wendy Walsh, a former regular guest on Fox's "The O'Reilly Factor" TV show, and her lawyer, Lisa Bloom, which the two posted to YouTube.

"21st Century Fox investigates all complaints and we have asked the law firm Paul Weiss to continue assisting the company in these serious matters," the company said in a statement.

Walsh, a psychologist and radio host, said O'Reilly reneged on an offer to secure her a lucrative job on the network after she declined his invitation to join him in his hotel suite after a dinner in early 2013.

"I'm told that they are taking it seriously, and they are going to do the investigation that's legally required of them," Bloom told CNN on Sunday.

Comment: Bill O'Reilly joins list of men sued at Fox News for sexual harassment - again

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Handcuffs

$300mn telefraud scam mastermind arrested on arrival in India


RT
Sun, 09 Apr 2017 08:11 UTC
IRS scam
© Stringer / ReutersPolice officials escort Sagar Thakkar.
The prime suspect in an international $300 million telefraud scam that targeted American taxpayers has been arrested by police at Mumbai International Airport.

Sagar Thakkar, 24, was taken into custody in the early hours of Saturday morning as he stepped off a flight from Dubai, where he had been on the hiding out from Indian authorities for several months, Reuters reported, citing local police sources.

Thakkar is the suspected leader of a major international telefraud syndicate that operated in the US and India.

Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh told a news conference that Thakkar, who was charged as part of the ongoing DOJ investigation, had fled to Dubai following raids in October related to the case, Reuters reported.
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Magnify

'Guccifer 2.0' chat logs with nude model spark new theories about murder of DNC's Seth Rich

Ian Miles Cheong
Heat Street
Sat, 08 Apr 2017 18:32 UTC
Wikileaks Seth Rich
© heatst.com
New chat logs between alleged Democratic National Committee hacker Guccifer 2.0 and a Playboy centerfold model surfaced today via Wikileaks on Twitter, throwing more fuel on the conspiracy theories surrounding murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich.

The Twitter conversation, conducted via direct messages, purports to reveal Rich as the primary leaker of the DNC e-mails that proved highly disruptive during the 2016 presidential election. There is no substantiation to these claims.

Robbin Young, who posed fully nude for Playboy in the 1980s, is the one who released the chat logs. She says on her website that she followed Guccifer 2.0 on Twitter following the DNC leaks. She considers him to be a "hero and a friend."

(U.S. officials have alleged that Guccifer 2.0 is the creation of Russian hackers seeking to interfere with American politics. Guccifer 2.0 has denied being a Russian front).

For a period of two weeks, Young and Guccifer 2.0 shared flirty messages and "discussed" politics. The conversations, as seen in the publicized logs, are effusive, intimate and conspiratorial,

Comment: See also: Guccifer 2.0: US falsified evidence, denies Russian links

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Dollar

11yo Russian boy with epilepsy beaten by 'debt collectors' for his mom's non-existent loan


RT
Mon, 10 Apr 2017 06:29 UTC
11 year old Russian boy
© P Wei/Getty Images
Three men in Yekaterinburg have allegedly attempted to beat a debt out of an 11-year-old boy with epilepsy, accusing his mother of not paying back a loan at a bank that she did not take. The woman says her son might have been harassed for her sister's debt.

Moreover, Irina told Russian media that one day before the beating the unidentified perpetrators spilled beer on his head and made him smoke a cigarette. She denies receiving debt recovery letters or taking the loan in the first place.

Yekaterinburg police have confirmed to Life.ru that Irina indeed has no bank loans.

Meanwhile, Irina has revealed that her sister and near-identical twin, Olga, might be the one the debt collectors were seeking. Olga took a car loan from the bank in 2011, Irina said.

"She has the same surname as me, the same date of birth and she is registered at the same place as me," Irina said. She noted that while her twin reportedly paid back the principal sum of the loan, 300,000 rubles, she also had the same amount due in interest.
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