Society's ChildS


Dollar

Indian billionaire gives employees cars and apartments as Diwali gifts

K
Best Boss
© Metro UK
nown for his benevolent Diwali gifts to his employees, Surat-based billionaire diamond merchant Savji Dholakia has this year too kept over a thousand cars and 400 flats to his well-performing staffers with the company bearing part of the monthly installments.

Dholakia, who owns the Hare Krishna Exports, has gifted 400 flats and 1,260 cars as Diwali bonuses to his employees. However, the company will bear a part, Rs 5,000, of the loan installments on the flats and the cars for five years.

"We have selected 1,716 employees as the best performers this year. We are arranging for houses for those who already own cars, while those who don't have a four-wheeler will get one," Dholakia told IANS.

He said the 400 flats each of 1,100 square feet would be allotted in a housing scheme of the company itself. "The flats would come dirt cheap at Rs 15 lakh and the monthly installment, which the employee will start paying after five years will be Rs 11,000," he said. The bonus, which were announced at an informal meeting of employees, on Tuesday have been an annual ritual at Hare Krishna Exports.

Last year, Dholakia's company similarly gave 491 cars and 200 flats to its employees. The year before that, it spent Rs 50 crore on performance incentives, Dholakia said.

The diamond merchant, who hails from Dudhala village in Amreli district in Saurashtra region, established and nurtured his business using a loan from his uncle. He had sent his son Dravya to eke out a job in Kerala to learn the ropes.

Star of David

Manufactured anti-Semitism and the dark side of Jewish consciousness

Hajo Meyer
Hajo Meyer
I dedicate this essay to Hajo Meyer (1924-2014) anti-Zionist, political activist, Auschwitz survivor and hero in the struggle for Palestinian freedom. His words continue to inform me and his actions comfort my sorrow.
"An anti-Semite used to be a person who disliked Jews. I am not anti-Jew. I am anti-Zionist"
"Zionism has nothing to do with Judaism. "
Zionism has always equated any criticism with anti-Semitism, delegitimization or worse. It serves as propaganda to maintain the illusion of Jews as "victims." Ultra Nationalists who believe in their moral superiority create political terror in order to silence and deny.

Who could imagine in 1945 following the defeat of Nazi Germany, there would be within a few short years a bizarre escalation, a toxic spread of anti-Semitism inflamed in part by a country with two faces. One face claims to be "the only Democracy in the Middle East" while the other face engages in an agenda embracing a genocidal occupation that spans across three generations of Palestinian children born in captivity. This is the face of Zionism with its dream of a Jewish State for Jews only, "Palestinians not allowed." There is an alter ego where truth breaks through all forms of denial. A painful truth that many are still unable to accept as a viable reality. It is the agenda of Israeli Zionism that inflicts the horrors of disenfranchisement and genocide onto an entire population of Palestinians, unwanted, hated and considered "inferior."

Black Cat

Teenage Russian boy arrested for decapitating man over dispute about a girl

Artyom Shustov
© The Siberian TimesArtyom Shustov
The beheaded body of Artyom Shustov, 19, was found early today in bushes in Komsomolsk-on-Amur in the Russian Far East. His head was severed with a kitchen knife, according to police.

Police have arrested 16 year old Nikita Rasskazov on suspicion of killing his love rival Shustov, said a source in the Investigative Committee, equivalent of the FBI.

The detained youth confessed to first killing the man, then using a kitchen knife to sever his head, which he threw in the Amur River.

'We detained an acquaintance of the victim who said that he first killed and then beheaded the victim because of jealousy', a police source told Life.ru

The girl over whom the pair was allegedly in dispute was not named.

The body was found in Zheleznodorozhnikov (Railway Workers) Park, around 100 metres from the entrance. 'It was dragged for about ten metres to be hidden into the bushes, the trace is quite visible,' said a witness.

Ambulance

Alabama gas line explosion leaves several burned, others missing

Colonial pipeline gas explosion
© Via Twitter@bshelburne
A gas line explosion in Shelby County has left at least seven people severely burned and 10 acres of land are on fire. Nearby residents have been evacuated without incident, but two pipeline contractors are still missing.

An explosion on a Colonial gas pipeline occurred as "eight or nine" subcontractors were trying to flush one of the lines on Monday, the Birmingham News reported. So far, seven have been reported to be injured and two workers are possibly missing. The fire's intense heat has hindered the search.

The mainlines have been shut down in Shelby, according to a press release from Colonial Pipelines. While flames from the blaze have reached 50 feet high, no damage has been reported in the nearby town of Helena. The only homes in the vicinity have been evacuated with no injuries.


This is only the most recent incident for the Colonial pipeline. In September, a leak in the pipeline resulted in an estimated 336,000 gallons of gasoline to be lost, the Birmingham News reported. The explosion occurred roughly five miles west from the leak.

Clipboard

New poll shows half of Russians fear Syria intervention could spark WWIII

US Navy ships
© U.S. Navy/Reuters
Almost half of all respondents in a recent Russian opinion poll said they feared that the aggravation of relations between Russia and the West caused by the ongoing crisis in Syria could develop into a global military conflict.

The share of those who see the probability of World War Three in the near future as high or very high is now at 48 percent and those who appraise it as low or very low comprise 42 percent of society, the privately-owned public opinion research center Levada reported on Monday. The remaining 10 percent of respondents said they couldn't give a simple answer to the question.

When researchers asked citizens if they considered it possible that Russia and the West would eventually find a mutually acceptable solution to the crisis, 35 percent answered that this scenario was likely or very likely. Thirty-nine percent evaluate the probability of such an outcome as low or very low and 26 percent said that they couldn't answer the question.

Just over half - 52 percent - of Russians said they approve of their country's involvement in the Syrian conflict and 26 percent said they had a negative or sharply negative attitude to this. Just under a quarter - 23 percent - couldn't answer the question about their personal view on the subject. Those who thought that Russia should continue the operation and those who thought that airstrikes should be stopped were divided 49 percent against 28 percent respectively, with 24 percent finding the question too difficult to answer.

Red Flag

Venezuela opposition-led strike fails, pro-Maduro supporters march for 3rd time in a week

venezuela metro
© @Moises_GalvezVenezuela's metro service on Friday. Some strike!
The Venezuelan opposition suffered another setback on Friday, after its call for a national strike went largely ignored by the majority of the population.

Meanwhile pro-government supporters marched on the Miraflores presidential palace for the third time in less than a week, against what they are labelling as escalating right-wing attempts to depose the national government.

12 Hour Strike

Riding on the coattails of a huge anti-government march last Wednesday, opposition leaders grouped under the MUD coalition called on business owners and ordinary citizens to "turn the Venezuelan streets into a desert" on Friday by refusing to leave their homes or turn up for work.

The strike was called in response to the postponement of the opposition's recall referendum process by the National Electoral Council (CNE) on October 20, pending investigations into more than 53,000 fraudulent signatures collected in the first stage of the process.

Comment: The criminal courts of Monagas, Carabobo, Aragua and Apure all annulled the referendum due to fraudulent votes (which contributed to the 1% required to proceed with the referendum process), thus halting the next step: a signature collection of 20% of the electorate. Like good Western oligarchs, the MUD called it a Madura coup against the constitution and accused Maduro of being a dictator. The National Assembly called it a "breach of constitutional order". Funny, that's exactly what these people supported back in 2002 in the illegal coup attempt against Chavez. Their talk of democracy and the constitution is all show, and brings to mind the "constitutional coup" against Rousseff in Brazil. See also: What's the Real Cause of Venezuela's Economic Crisis? Economic Warfare


Black Magic

Texas man confesses to decapitating wife during 'battle between good and evil', stored head in freezer

Davie Dauzat
© The DishhDavie and Natasha Dauzat
A Bellmead man who authorities say confessed to decapitating his wife and putting her head in a freezer during "a battle between good and evil" was indicted Wednesday.

A McLennan County grand jury charged Davie Dauzat, 23, with murder in the Aug. 25 death of his 21-year-old wife, Natasha Dauzat.

Dauzat, who remains jailed under $500,000 bond, reportedly told investigators he killed his wife with a knife while their 1-year-old son and 3-year-old daughter were in the house.

An autopsy report confirmed Natasha Dauzat died from "sharp-force injuries, including decapitation." Joseph Marcee, a Georgetown attorney who represents Dauzat, did not return phone messages left at his office.

Dauzat told police killing his wife was wrong, but he also made conflicting statements, according to records filed in the case. He "acknowledged that killing Natasha was wrong; however, he would also state that it was a battle between good and evil," the records state.

Airplane

The Sinai "crash" 1 year later: Russians continue to mourn

flight 9268
© SputnikThe wreckage of Kogalymavia's Airbus A321 passenger airliner. Flight 9268 was traveling to St. Petersburg from the city of Sharm El-Sheikh and crashed 100 km south of the North Sinai town of El-Arish.
One year on from the deadliest air crash in Russian history, in which a passenger plane en route to St. Petersburg was blown up over the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt, relatives of the 224 victims still mourn their loved ones.

The Metrojet A321 charter flight 7K9268 with 224 people on board, including 25 children, was on its way to St. Petersburg, Russia, from the Egyptian resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh. Twenty-three minutes into the flight, still above Egyptian territory, the plane disappeared from radar screens.

It was later discovered that a bomb had been placed aboard the Airbus, with a local branch of Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) subsequently claiming responsibility for the attack.

After twelve months of grief, the victims' relatives say the hardest part is to accept this new heartbreaking reality that the people they loved more than life itself have gone.

Comment: There may be more to the Flight 7K9268 crash than meets the eye: Behind the Headlines: Did a 'Directed Energy' Weapon Bring Down the Russian Plane over Egypt?


Light Saber

Croatian MP tells truth about EU and NATO in parliament (VIDEO)

croatian mp truth nato
After a video in which he slated the US, NATO and the EU swept the social media in the region, Croatian anti-establishment MP Ivan Pernar claims 'people are hungry for the truth'.

With over a 1.5 million views of the video of his speech, newly elected Croatian MP Ivan Pernar has become a star for anti-establishment activists around the Balkan region.

Pernar, 31, a first-time MP from the opposition anti-establishment Living Wall - a party born out of a movement formed to stop seizures of homes - told BIRN that his appearance is not the primary cause for the popularity of the video, but "hunger among people for the truth".

The video was made by another young regional anti-establishment star, Boris Malagurski from Serbia, who is widely known for his film "Weight of Chains", in which he tackled the issues of NATO intervention in Yugoslavia and the 1995 Srebrenica massacre.


Ambulance

With no airstrikes on al-Qaeda to focus on, Amnesty Intl forced to condemn "unlawful" rebel attacks on western Aleppo

syrian rebels
© Fadi Al-Halabi / AFP
The human rights NGO Amnesty International has raised the alarm of civilians being killed in Syria's western Aleppo by armed opposition groups. Having called the attacks on government-controlled areas "unlawful," the group said that weapons banned by international law had also been used.

"The goal of breaking the siege on eastern Aleppo does not give armed opposition groups a license to flout the rules of international humanitarian law by bombarding civilian neighborhoods in government-held areas without distinction," Deputy Director of Campaigns at Amnesty International's Beirut regional office, Samah Hadid, said.

In a statement published on Monday, the organization accused armed opposition groups of "a shocking disregard for civilian lives." The latest offensive on western Aleppo launched on October 28 saw "indiscriminate attacks on civilian areas," the group said, adding that dozens of innocent people, including children, were killed in the areas, controlled by the Syrian government.

Comment: As long as Syria and Russia were conducting airstrikes against the "rebels" attacking western Aleppo from the besieged eastern part of the city and from the rebel-held west, the media and human rights groups could focus solely on those airstrikes, denouncing them as war crimes, while ignoring the crimes of the rebels themselves. But now that the airstrikes have stopped, for now, it's a lot harder to ignore the nature of the attacks - which is the very reason Russia and Syria were carrying out airstrikes in the first place. RT's coverage of the "rebel" crimes has been exceptional: And R&U Videos is a great resource for video updates of the fighting: