Society's ChildS


Snakes in Suits

Stonewalling: Shell concealing health and environmental hazards at stalled cleanup of worst oil spill in Nigeria's history

Michelle Faul
Phys.org
Fri, 24 Mar 2017 00:00 UTC
Shell oil spill Port Harcourt Nigeria
© AP Photo/Sunday AlambaIn this Thursday, March 24, 2011 file photo, oil flows on the creek water's surface near an illegal oil refinery in Ogoniland, outside Port Harcourt, in Nigeria's Delta region.
Royal Dutch Shell's Nigeria subsidiary "fiercely opposed" environmental testing and is concealing data showing thousands of Nigerians are exposed to health hazards from a stalled cleanup of the worst oil spills in the West African nation's history, according to a German geologist contracted by the Dutch-British multinational.

An environmental study found "astonishingly high" pollution levels with soil "literally soaked with hydrocarbons," geologist Kay Holtzmann wrote in a letter to the Bodo Mediation Initiative.

The people of Bodo in the oil-producing southern Niger Delta should get urgent medical tests, Holtzmann wrote in the letter dated Jan. 26 and seen by The Associated Press.

Shell did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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X

PepsiCo, Walmart, Starbucks join Google boycott after ads run next to 'appalling' videos


RT
Sat, 25 Mar 2017 12:33 UTC
Boycott
© Dado Ruvic / Reuters
PepsiCo, Walmart, and Starbucks have joined the international boycott against Google's YouTube and suspended advertising on the video-sharing service over mounting concerns that their ads may have run next to "appalling" videos.

Some advertisers said they won't return to YouTube until they are certain Google has the situation under control.

"The content with which we are being associated is appalling and completely against our company values," Walmart said in a Friday statement.

The company, alongside PepsiCo and several others, said they will also stop buying ads that Google places on more than two million other third-party websites,AP reported.

Verizon and AT&T, along with UK retailer Marks and Spencer and L'Oreal, pulled ads from YouTube earlier this week. AT&T said it is removing the ads from the non-search inventory on Google because its "ads may have appeared alongside YouTube content promoting terrorism and hate," the company wrote in an email, Reuters reported.
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Black Cat 2

College professors warn about "pain and injury" that controversial guest speakers may cause students

Melissa Dykes
The Daily Sheeple
Fri, 24 Mar 2017 00:00 UTC
oh noes!
Millennials don't seem to see the hypocrisy in being a snowflake.

They run around whining about certain people's "privilege" (white privilege, male privilege, etc.) in this society, but it's a pretty damn "privileged" position to worry about someone hurting your feelings or offending you — as if that's the worst possible thing that could ever happen to you in the world.

Now colleges are straight up warning their students about the potential for guest speakers to offend them and demanding anyone who could be offensive not be allowed to speak at all.

Reason.com reports that the Commission for Ethnicity, Race, and Equity (CERE) at Wellesley, a group made up of six Wellesley professors mind you, recently sent an email to the entire campus discouraging, "guest speakers with controversial and objectionable beliefs" without first considering the potential pain, injury, harm, and damage to the students.
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Smiley

Home, sweet home! Crimeans feel happy about the 'future of their children'


Sputnik
Sat, 25 Mar 2017 20:17 UTC
Crimea celebrations
© Sputnik/ Maks Vetrov
A group of foreign MPs who recently visited the Russian peninsula of Crimea had witnessed firsthand that the locals are truly happy with the results of the Crimean Spring and changes brought by the reunification with Russia.

During their three-day visit to Crimea, MPs from the United Kingdom, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Serbia, Montenegro and Kyrgyzstan sought to ascertain the current state of affairs at the peninsula and to learn what the locals think about the reunification with Russia which took place three years ago.
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Handcuffs

Israel's arrest and interrogation of BDS co-founder Omar Barghouti is next step in 'war against BDS movement'

Sheren Khalel
Mondoweiss
Thu, 23 Mar 2017 00:00 UTC
Omar Barghouti
© Carlos Latuff)
Palestinian society has condemned Israel's arrest and interrogation of Omar Barghouti, a co-founder of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement as the next step in Israel's fight against the BDS movement as a whole.

Israel arrested Barghouti on Sunday, raided his family home in Acre, Israel, held him for 16 hours and released him — however the BDS co-founder has been subjected to daily interrogations with Israeli authorities since then, according to a statement released by the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC).

Israeli tax authorities are accusing Barghouti of tax evasion on the sum of $700,000 in alleged hidden income from National Computing Resources, a business he heads in Ramallah, which sells ATM machines and other equipment in the occupied West Bank, as well as income from his book, Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions: The Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights and money he received as speaking fees for speeches.

The BNC on Wednesday released a statement challenging the charges.

"Omar Barghouti, has for years been subjected to intense threats, intimidation and repression by various arms of the far-right Israeli government, particularly after it considered the movement a 'strategic threat' to its entire system of injustice against Palestinians," the movement said in a statement.
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Hardhat

UK watchdog sounds alarm over doctored papers and security breaches at French nuclear parts supplier


RT
Sat, 25 Mar 2017 17:41 UTC
Workmen are seen in the foundry at the Areva Creusot Forge site in Le Creusot, France
© Robert Pratta / ReutersWorkmen are seen in the foundry at the Areva Creusot Forge site in Le Creusot, France.
Britain's Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) has questioned the adequacy of a French nuclear forge which had already supplied parts for UK nuclear sites. It follows revelations of doctored paperwork and security breaches by the French producer.

The ONR report, obtained under a Freedom of Information request and seen by Reuters, gives details on the December 16 visit by an international monitoring team to a French Creusot forge, operated by the country's state-owned nuclear supplier Areva.
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Pistol

Suspected ISIS fighters attacked refugees outside Mosul


RT
Sat, 25 Mar 2017 17:18 UTC
ISIS
Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) jihadists are suspected of attacking a town just outside Mosul used as a safe haven by refugees and reporters. RT's Murad Gazdiev visited the community to investigate.

The RT crew arrived in the city at 7am, and found Hamam al-Alil completely locked down, with heavily armed troops and roadblocks.

The Iraqi military told them that journalists were banned from entering the city, but the crew drove around the city for hours until, eventually, they came in from the back roads from the side of Mosul.

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Sheriff

Cops shoot man over $100 pot sale, leaving him paralyzed, and lie about it

Jack Burns
The Free Thought Project
Fri, 24 Mar 2017 16:27 UTC
Julian Betton
Julian Betton is moved from his wheelchair to a gurney so he can be transported from the courthouse to his Myrtle Beach apartment.
Radley Balko, of the Washington Post, writes a regular column for the newspaper called "The Watch." Author of Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's Police Forces," Balko blogs about criminal justice, the drug war, and civil liberties. In one of his latest pieces on badge abuses, the author addressed, once again, the near homicide of a low-level Myrtle Beach, South Carolina drug dealer (Julian Betton) at the hands of police. Here's his summary of the incident.
Julian Betton's offense was to sell $100 worth of pot to a friend. For that, South Carolina police battered down his door, fired 57 shots at him and hit him nine times, leaving him paralyzed and without the use of several major body organs. The cops then lied about the circumstances of the raid to make it seem as if Betton deserved every bullet. When Betton awoke from a coma, his leg was shackled to the hospital bed. Prosecutors then charged him with several felonies — enough of them to put him in prison for the rest of his life, should he survive his injuries. For those two sales of pot totaling $100, Betton will not only be saddled with paralysis and debilitating injury, he'll also have a felony record. The cops who broke down his door, filled him with bullets and then lied about what had happened will suffer no punishment at all.
What Balko's synopsis doesn't reveal, is that there were a series of cover-ups the police raid team engaged in, and what might seem like a team effort to coordinate their stories in the aftermath of the planned conflict. First, the team did not seek after, nor secure a no-knock raid warrant. Betton's high-definition security footage reveals the police officers made no such effort to knock on the door, which is required by law, even though their police reports stated they did knock and announce their presence.
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Eye 2

Cop who forced oral sex on woman won't face charges

Jack Burns
The Free Thought Project
Sat, 25 Mar 2017 17:09 UTC
Angel Burgos
Angel Burgos
A Florida woman may be asking herself why she even spoke out against the perpetrator who sexually assaulted her, now that the man, (who also happens to be a police officer), will not face criminal charges for forcing oral sex upon her.

Detective Angel Burgos knew the woman from an unrelated case. As Christmas Day was fast approaching, he decided to pay a visit to her home on December 15th, 2016. She said she felt like she had no reason not to trust him when he approached her, and asked her to get into his unmarked squad car. "He was an officer, I didn't think much of it, I trusted him," the woman told BuzzFeed News.

After getting inside his vehicle, Buzzfeed wrote Det. Burgos, "began telling her how beautiful she is and kissed her, while unzipping his pants and exposing his penis. When Burgos asked the woman to put her hand on his penis, she declined, and he then touched himself with one hand while squeezing the woman's breasts with his other hand."

Comment: Until law enforcement agencies start charging officers with crimes and putting them in jail, people like Angel Burgos are going to continue to abuse their position of power knowing that their authority puts them in a different class than the rest of the public. Put cops in jail and they will learn that they are not above the law.

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Pills

Is the DEA high? Approves synthetic marijuana for big pharma company against legalization


RT
Sat, 25 Mar 2017 13:19 UTC
marijuana leaf
© Nir Elias / Reuters
A synthetic marijuana product could be available for commercialization after the DEA gave a newly approved drug a schedule II classification.

On Thursday, Insys Therapeutics announced that the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) issued an interim final rule that would put Syndros, their synthetic marijuana drug, on Schedule II of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA).

"Insys is looking forward to bringing this new drug product to chemotherapy patients to help alleviate their nausea and vomiting and AIDS patients with anorexia associated weight loss, respectively," Dr. Santosh Vetticaden, interim CEO, said in the announcement.

"We look forward to interacting with the FDA to finalize the labeling and subsequent launch of Syndros in the second half of 2017," Vetticaden said.


Comment: Watch the video below for more on the effects of synthetic marijuana.


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