Society's ChildS


Health

'Heart-breaking' plight of Yemen's starving children: UN urges end to conflict amid ongoing Saudi strikes


RT
Wed, 05 Oct 2016 11:32 UTC
starving children
© Khaled Abdullah / Reuters
UN humanitarian aid chief Stephen O'Brien, who travelled to Yemen and was shocked by what he saw, has called on all parties in the conflict to give access to aid, as Yemenis are becoming poorer - and hungrier - by the day.

"The best humanitarian relief that can be provided is an end to the conflict. I urged the authorities, as I urge other parties to the conflict, to return to political negotiations without delay to reach a negotiated solution," Stephen O'Brien, who is also the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, said in Sanaa, the Yemeni capital.

Four out of five Yemenis are in need of humanitarian assistance, the UN says. The UN World Food Programme says nearly half of Yemen's 22 provinces are on the verge of famine. However, the situation with children in Yemen is especially dire, it seems.

My visit to Al Hudaydah hospital was heart-breaking," he said. "Mothers bring their malnourished children for treatment but there is simply not enough medicines to treat them. The quantities of food, medicine and fuel entering the country are way below the needs and must be increased as a matter of urgency."

Comment: It's not only the gruesome destruction of young bodies, or the slow-motion death of malnutrition and starvation inflicted upon these children; it is also great emotional and psychological anguish and turmoil they they feel, as illustrated by the following story: This 10-year-old girl wants you to know what the US Government is doing to Yemen

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Dollars

Apple is the biggest US tax avoider - stashes $215bn in Irish offshore accounts


RT
Wed, 05 Oct 2016 15:53 UTC
Apple computers
© Bobby Yip / Reuters
A new study reveals Fortune 500 companies are holding nearly $2.5 trillion in accumulated profits offshore to pay less tax. Top is Apple which since 2009 funneled $214.9 billion to tax havens and would owe $65.4 billion if the profits returned to the US.

The report was published just weeks after a European investigation concluded Ireland provided Apple with a favorable tax rate which allowed the company to pay one percent on EU profits in 2003 down to 0.005 percent in 2014. Apple is now obliged to pay $14.5 billion in back taxes.

The $215 billion Apple booked offshore through three tax havens last year is bigger than the gross domestic product of Portugal, Greece or New Zealand. If the company returned the earnings to the US and paid the $65.4 billion in tax, it would have been more than economies of Belarus, Uruguay or Croatia.

Comment: Apple and other corporations are able to get away with this only if politicians collude with them. The lawmakers provide the loopholes.

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Monkey Wrench

Reducing consumer waste: Sweden plans to make planned obsolescence obsolete

Vic Bishop
Waking Times
Tue, 30 Aug 2016 15:55 UTC
bike repair
Our world is being totally trashed, not out of necessity, out of convenience. Something has changed in recent decades, and companies deliberately no longer produce goods that will last as long as possible, instead capitalizing on the consumer's willingness to toss something in the trash and replace it with something new, rather than go through the effort of having it fixed.

It's called planned obsolescence, a strategy of some product manufacturers. The basic idea is to engineer a product to have a predictably short lifetime so that when it malfunctions or breaks, the company can profit by selling another product. The additional sales and profits make it possible to sell more products at a lower cost, thereby increasing the attractiveness in a replacement. This is especially true for technology products, and some companies are finally beginning to design products that can evolve as technology does.

This business model has led to the collapse of the repair industry which used to be a thriving source of skilled labor for many people while saving resources and reducing mountains of waste.

Comment: See also:

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Megaphone

Syrian-born journalist slams mainstream media for pro-rebel bias in Aleppo


RT
Tue, 04 Oct 2016 13:45 UTC
syria destruction
A Syrian-born journalist has slammed the New York Daily News and the Independent newspaper for not accusing Syrian rebels of shelling areas belonging to government forces, lamenting that the MSM is not covering all sides of the war.

Harout Ekmanian was speaking to RT about his disbelief at the deliberate misreporting of the death of a Syrian swimmer and her 12-year-old brother.

Mireille Hindoyan and her younger sibling were killed in the Villi district of West Aleppo on Friday.

"I think the first victim of the war is the truth, especially in the Syrian war where journalism and journalists suffered a lot. Preserving impartiality has become a very difficult task for journalists,"he said.

Ekmanian, who now lives in New York, wrote an editorial in the New York Daily News explaining what had happened, only for the publication to remove a section in which he said the rebels were responsible for the deaths of the brother and sister.

"The New York Daily News published my contribution, but a paragraph was removed. I don't think personally that was a very serious editorial decision and I am still waiting for an explanation," he told RT.
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Info

What about people's rights? Texas lawmakers want schools to teach kids how to behave during traffic stops


RT
Wed, 05 Oct 2016 13:44 UTC
Texas police
© Laura Buckman / Reuters
Texas politicians are deliberating a bill to require schools teach teenagers how to comply with police during traffic stops. The local Black Lives Matter has called the proposal "an insult," and accused lawmakers of "trying to satisfy" police unions.

"Students need to know what their rights are. It is not as simple as "obey and complain" - it's too simplistic," Senator John Whitmire told the Senate Criminal Justice Committee during a three-hour hearing on Tuesday.

"We are in an emotionally sensitive time," Whitmire told community leaders, referring to increased tensions between police and citizens around the country.
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Pistol

Best of the Web: Police brutality is CLASS warfare, not 'race war': 19 Americans killed by cops this week, most of them NOT Black

Patrick Martin
World Socialist Website
Tue, 04 Oct 2016 21:08 UTC
US militarized police
These people don't care if you're white, black or yellow
At least 19 people lost their lives in encounters with police in the United States last week. The victims, all men, ranged in age from 18 to 53. Seventeen were shot to death, one tased, and one both tased and beaten and strangled. In only two of the cases were the victims shot while engaged in violent attacks on others. All the others were shot while fleeing or allegedly resisting police, or while experiencing mental health or emotional crises.

In several instances the police killings sparked protests. In El Cajon, California, a suburb of San Diego, there were protests over the death September 27 of Alfred Olango, an immigrant from Uganda who was tased and shot to death while unarmed. Olango was having an emotional breakdown after learning of the death of a friend.

In Pasadena, California, a suburb of Los Angeles, more than 100 people gathered to protest the killing of Reginald Thomas, father of eight children, after police were called to address a domestic dispute early Friday. The 36-year-old black man, who was reportedly bipolar, was said to be waving a knife and a fire extinguisher when police arrived.

Comment: Class, not race, is the primary determinant of who gets killed by The Enforcers; a fact that is almost completely lost in a climate where hysteria favors the super-rich super-elite because ordinary people turn against each other and forget about the bank bailouts, the illegal wars, the rigged elections, the illegal surveillance state, the destruction of civil liberties, etc, etc.

See also:

US Police State - All the ways you can comply and still die during an encounter with police

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Handcuffs

West Virginia man arrested for sexually assaulting 10-month-old child

Jake Jarvis
WV Gazette Mail
Wed, 05 Oct 2016 11:24 UTC
Benjamin Taylor
© WCHS/WVAHBenjamin Taylor, 32, of Cottageville is accused of sexually assaulting a 9-month-old baby girl.
Deputies arrested a Jackson County man they allege sexually assaulted a 10-month old infant, leaving the child with extensive bleeding and life-threatening injuries, according to a criminal complaint filed in Jackson County Magistrate Court.

Benjamin Ryan Taylor, 32, of Cottageville, reportedly assaulted his girlfriend's infant daughter sometime late Sunday night or early Monday morning while everyone else in the apartment was asleep, the complaint states.

The baby was taken to Jackson Memorial Hospital, where an emergency doctor told deputies that the baby's traumatic injuries were likely suffered several hours before arrival, according to the criminal complaint.

"Additionally, Taylor did nothing in an effort to save the victim's life as a result of the said injuries sustained in the sexual encounter," the complaint reads.
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MIB

MI5 spy tells of narrowly avoiding being butchered by north London Islamists in new book


RT
Tue, 04 Oct 2016 11:48 UTC
cloak and dagger
© Stefan Wermuth / Sputnik
A former MI5 spy narrowly avoided being butchered by terrorists while following a group of Islamist extremists in London, it has emerged.

The spy, who goes by the pseudonym Tom Marcus, claims to have narrowly avoided being lured into a trap set by radical Islamists who wanted to kill the intelligence operative.

He describes the incident in a new book, Soldier Spy, in which he gives an account of his life as an agent for Britain's domestic intelligence agency, MI5.

Comment: Working for an agency that requires one go against his or her conscience is bound to leave psychological scarring, like PTSD. See also:

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MIB

Teen arrested after contacting clown on social media to kill teacher

Kevin Green and Matt Gregory
10 On Your Side
Mon, 03 Oct 2016 16:42 UTC
scary clown
© Getty Images/EyeEm
A 13-year-old Hampton girl is in police custody for allegedly reaching out to a person on social media to kill one of her teachers.

Police say the person she contacted was using a clown image as their profile picture. She allegedly reached out to this person to murder a teacher at Davis Middle School.

"The profile that she contacted actually was using a clown as a profile picture and so using a clown related alias," Officer Ashley Jenrette of Hampton Police said.

According to police, a dispatcher received a call Sunday evening about a threat being made on social media, and the investigation resulted in the teen's arrest.

Detectives reached out to the teacher to make sure they were OK. Police say there is no evidence at this time indicating threats have been made against anyone else.
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Eye 2

Ferguson protesters' $41.5mn lawsuit against police dismissed by federal judge


RT
Tue, 04 Oct 2016 03:49 UTC
Police in Ferguson
© Kenny Bahr / Reuters
A lawsuit from Ferguson protesters against the police, city and county has been dismissed by a federal judge. He ruled the plaintiffs had not presented evidence that police had behaved maliciously during protests over the death of Michael Brown.

The $41.5 million lawsuit against Ferguson Police, the city of Ferguson and the St. Louis county was dismissed on Monday by Judge Henry Autrey. It was filed on behalf of Tracey White, Dwayne Anton Matthews Jr, Damon Coleman, Theophilus Green and Kerry White, who all took part in protests in August 2014 over the killing of 18-year-old Michael Brown.

Autrey also ruled that the individual police officers in the case would be given immunity in other cases.

In a 74-page ruling, Autrey wrote: "At the time of the events detailed herein, the atmosphere surrounding the arrests was extremely intense and had turned violent," and police "clearly had argued probable cause to arrest any individual" that did not comply.

Comment: See also: Rise of the death culture: Murder rate in US up 11%, biggest increase since 1971

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