Society's ChildS

Attention

Leftist riot in Berlin: Over 120 policemen injured and 86 civilians arrested

Berlin leftist riot
© RT
Some 123 policemen were injured and some 86 people arrested as far-left extremists protested the eviction of a Berlin squat in what local authorities termed the most violent demonstration of the past five years.

An estimated 3,500 far-left radicals clashed with police in the Friedrichshain and Kreuzberg neighborhoods on Saturday and during the night that followed. They were opposed by some 1,800 security personnel. Police units came to the German capital from at least four different federal parts of Germany.

Other sources suggest there were up to as many as 7,000 rioters.

Attention

102 arrested, 21 cops injured in Black Lives Matter protests in St. Paul

Protestors shut down highway I-94 on July 9, 2016 in St. Paul, Minnesota
© Stephen Maturen / AFP Protestors shut down highway I-94 on July 9, 2016 in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Police detained some 102 people while 21cops were injured at a violent rally that saw Interstate 94 blocked in in Saint Paul, Minnesota, amid nationwide protests following the deadly shooting of policemen in Dallas last week over recent police killings of black men.

On Saturday night, hundreds of people protesting the deaths of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling, shot dead by police officers earlier in the week, gathered at St. Paul Governor's residence and marched to Interstate 94, shutting it down for at least five hours.

Comment: Some relevant live tweets, for what they're worth:
  • "Protesters throwing objects at officers. #I94closed"
  • "Person with laser sight pointing it at officers. Fireworks being fired at officers by protesters. #I94closed"
  • "Officer injured by fireworks thrown by protesters. #I94closed"
  • "Protesters now arming themselves with rebar from construction site. #I94closed"
  • "Protesters on overpasses throwing objects at officers, dumping liquid on officers. #I94closed"
  • Officer injured after being hit with a glass bottle thrown by protesters. #I94closed
  • "Aggressors now throwing rebar from construction zone at officers. Rocks continue to fly at officers. #I94closed"
  • "Another officer has been injured by aggressors throwing objects. Three injured so far. #I94closed"
  • "Bricks now being thrown at officers, along with more rocks and bottles. #I94closed"
  • "An officer has been hit in the head with a rock. Unclear the extent of injuries. #I94closed"
  • "Another officer hit in the head with a large piece of concrete, possibly dropped from bridge. #I94closed"
  • "Molotov cocktail thrown at officers. Unclear if anyone injured. #I94closed"



Better Earth

Forestalling disaster: Russia, UNESCO push program for a generation without racial, religious prejudice

children
© Ronen Zvulun / ReutersThere's only a small window of time before children are shaped into small-minded bigots by their ignorant caregivers and society in general.
In an effort to find a solution to Europe's migration crisis, Russia's Federal Center for Tolerance has teamed up with UNESCO, campaigning to bring up a "new generation" of children and teachers "free from racial, ethnic and religious stereotypes."

Acting with the support of the Russian Federation of Jewish Communities at Moscow's Jewish Museum, Russia's Federal Center for Tolerance and UNESCO held their first joint conference on migration earlier this week.

The conference, "Migration for Sustainable Development: Social transformations, media discourses and education," took place in UNESCO's headquarters in Paris, and was attended by leading experts in social sciences and humanities from more than 30 countries.

Comment: Russia has arguably made use of the same type of "anti-terrorist" memes that the U.S. has in its war on terror at home and abroad in Syria. But the differences are striking. While the net effect seems to be exacerbating hatred in Western countries for Muslims, Russian leaders and society seem to make efforts to avoid that kind of programming. (Western leaders either do nothing, make it worse, or make half-hearted attempts to foster good will.) Further reading: What the U.S. can learn from Russia about Islamophobia


Attention

Head-on collision of passenger trains in Czech Republic leaves seven people injured

train collision czech republic
A head-on collision of two passenger trains in Czech Republic early on Sunday has resulted in seven people receiving various injuries, local media reported.

The incident happened 200 meters (218.7 yards) away from the train station in the town of Rotava, the Blesk newspaper reported.

Police announced that the case in suspected criminal negligence was opened as the exact cause had not been identified so far, according to the daily.

Pistol

Police shootings: Yes, they are about race

Police brutality activist
© Scott Olson/Getty Images
"Why do you always have to make it about race?"

"Because it IS about race."

This is a common, growing conversation in the United States.

"Race and class are unfortunate, yet inextricable factorsโ€”for us, for the police and for the dead man," wrote Goldie Taylor, referring to Alton Sterling in her article for the Daily Beast. Mr. Sterling, a father of five, a small businessman, and an entrepreneur, was selling CDs in front of a mini-market with the blessing and consent of the owner, Abdullah Muflahi, who witnessed a Baton Rouge police officer shooting Mr. Sterling Tuesday night.

Info

As Japan's population dwindles - bears & boars roam where schools & shrines once thrived

Japan
© Julie Makinen / Los Angeles TimesYoshihiro Shibata visits the temple in Hara-izumi village, Japan. The last monk left years ago because donations were insufficient, given the village's dwindling population.
The red-roofed temple at the top of the hill closed about a decade ago, and now Yoshihiro Shibata can't even remember its name, though the 54-year-old dairy farmer has lived in this picturesque village all his life.

"The income of the temple depends on the number of residents, and there weren't enough to keep a monk here," he said, looking around the deserted grounds nestled amid the village's lush landscape of tea plants and hydrangeas, bamboo and pine trees.

A few years after the temple shut its doors, the village tea-processing factory closed down and the elementary school too. Now, the remaining students are bused an hour away.

"When I was young, we had about 100 kids here, but now there are just five," Shibata said.

Snakes in Suits

The stories of six more women who allege Roger Ailes sexually harassed them

Roger Ailes
© Charles Sykes
Fox News host Gretchen Carlson may be the highest-profile woman to accuse Roger Ailes of sexual harassment, but she is not the first. In my 2014 biography of the Fox News chief, I included interviews with four women who told me Ailes had used his position of power to make either unwanted sexual advances or inappropriate sexual comments in the office.

And it appears she won't be the last, either. In recent days, more than a dozen women have contacted Carlson's New Jersey-based attorney, Nancy Erika Smith, and made detailed allegations of sexual harassment by Ailes over a 25-year period dating back to the 1960s when he was a producer on The Mike Douglas Show. "These are women who have never told these stories until now," Smith told me. "Some are in lot of pain." Taken together, these stories portray Ailes as a boss who spoke openly of expecting women to perform sexual favors in exchange for job opportunities. "He said that's how all these men in media and politics work โ€” everyone's got their friend," recalled Kellie Boyle, who says Ailes propositioned her in 1989, shortly after he helped George H.W. Bush become president, serving as his chief media strategist.

Six of the women agreed to speak with New York publicly for the first time. Two spoke on the record; the others requested anonymity for reasons that include shame and fear of retribution. "I didn't tell my husband, it was so mortifying," said Marsha Callahan, a former model who says Ailes harassed her in the late '60s, shortly before he became Richard Nixon's media adviser.

Comment: See also: Ex-Fox News host Gretchen Carlson accuses CEO of 'severe' sexual harassment


Dollars

Siphoning cash from minorities and the poor: Philando Castile was stopped 52 times by cops before his murder

police emblem
© wearechange.org
A new report out of the Washington Post highlights the glaring profiling and gang stalking problem in America today. Philando Castile, who was murdered by police during a traffic stop, was a ticking time bomb โ€” because of law enforcement policy in the United States.

Prior to being pulled over and murdered this week, Castile had been stopped a whopping 52 times! All of these 'offenses' were non-criminal, had no victim, and were used to extract thousands from this poor man.

According to the Post, Castile was assessed at least $6,588 in fines and fees, although more than half of the total 86 violations were dismissed, court records show.

Castile was not a criminal. Not only was he not a criminal, Castile was an upstanding member of the community who now mourns his loss, yet he was targetted by police dozens of times.

Card - MC

Slap on the wrist: MasterCard faces ยฃ19bn lawsuit in UK over claims it ripped off shoppers

Kreditkarte, Visa, Mastercard
© AP
For 16 years the leading global payments company MasterCard has been imposing unlawfully high interchange fees for using its cards in shops, according to UK's former financial services ombudsman Walter Merricks.

He is leading a court action which is expected to be filed soon under the Consumer Rights Act. The law which was introduced in 2015 allows for collective damages claims.

"The prices of everything we all bought from 1992 to 2008 were higher than they should have been as a result of the unlawful conduct of MasterCard. To be clear, there is no question that MasterCard acted illegally in the way it conducted its business, a business that affects all of us. All of us overpaid to the tune of up to ยฃ19 billion ($24.5 billion) during a period lasting 16 years," Merricks said.

He added that "although most of us did not know this, experts who study the retail economy knew it was happening โ€” and so did MasterCard."

Merricks has already instructed US-based law firm Quinn Emanuel in an effort to seek redress to which UK consumers are entitled and to ensure MasterCard cannot hold on to the illegal profits it made.

"This case should send a signal to companies that break competition laws at the expense of UK consumers that they do so at their financial peril."

Eye 1

Who owns your DNA? Gene sequencing company has been selling genetic data of millions of Americans

DNA prison
The questions of our time have become - Who owns you? Your data? What about your DNA?

For customers who opted into signing a consent form when they signed up to have their DNA sequenced through the company 23andMe, it would appear that their DNA data belongs to a giant database that is being shared and sold to third-party medical and pharmaceutical firms.

As Gizmodo reported that the company that has been featured in Walgreens stores to sequence your DNA for a cheap one-time cost of $99 has a lot more at stake:

Comment: What will the government be doing with all that DNA?