A recent report published by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has indicated that UN peacekeepers are accused of widespread sexual abuse in various different parts of the world. According to the report, there were 99 different sexual assault allegations last year against UN Peacekeepers in 21 countries.

"It has been a terrible year for the principles enshrined in the United Nations Charter. From barrel bombs to beheadings, from the deliberate starvation of civilians to the assault on hospitals, UN shelters and aid convoys, human rights and the rule of law are under attack," Ki-moon said.

The allegations come from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Morocco, South Africa, Cameroon, Congo, Tanzania, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Gabon, Niger, Nigeria and Togo, Rwanda, Ghana, Madagascar and Senegal.

Reclusive street artist Banksy has been playing hide-and-seek with British authorities for years, in an effort to conceal his identity. A new study claims to have identified him, using a technique developed in criminology to track down serial offenders.

A group of scientists at Queen Mary University of London explained in their study (in the Journal of Spatial Science), they had used the so-called "Dirichlet process mixture (DPM) model of geographic profiling." This is a mathematical technique developed by criminologists. Researchers analyzed the spatial patterns of Banksy's artworks in Bristol and London and matched them up to places where a short list of suspects lived and worked. All the locations, a pub, playing fields and several residential addresses among them, led to a man called Robin Gunningham. The researchers concluded, with a fair degree of certainty, that Mr. Gunningham is Banksy.

A lab technician for the New Jersey State Police's Office of Forensic Science has 'retired' early after being caught falsely identifying a substance as marijuana without conducting the proper tests. On Monday, Deputy Public Defender Judy Fallon issued a memo to Public Defender Joseph Krakora explaining Kamalkant Shah's falsified report:

"Laboratory Technician II Kamalkant Shah of the New Jersey State Police Laboratory (in Little Falls) has been found to have 'dry labbed' suspected CDS specimens. Basically, he was observed writing 'test results' for suspected marijuana that was never tested."

According to NJ Advance Media, "Ellie Honig, director of the Division of Criminal Justice of the Attorney general's office, said in [a] Feb. 22 letter to county prosecutor's offices that Shah 'failed to appropriately conduct laboratory analyses in a drug case.'"

A US student arrested in North Korea for a "hostile act" has tearfully apologized for stealing a political banner "as a trophy," saying that a church supported by the American government made him do it.

Otto Warmbier, a 21-year-old student of at the University of Virginia, appeared in a government-arranged news conference in Pyongyang, begging for forgiveness for what he said was "the worst mistake in his life."

"I committed my crime of taking out the important political slogan from the staff-only area of the Yanggakdo International Hotel," he said, begging for "the Korean people and government" for forgiveness.

In his comments, Warmbier has said that he had planned his act in detail before arriving in Pyongyang on a tourist visa on December 29.

"On January 1, 2016, I committed my crime of taking down an important political slogan from a staff-only area Yanggakdo International Hotel aimed at harming the work ethic and the motivation of the Korean people," Warmbier said, adding that he was arrested early in the morning on January 2 at the airport.

Warmbier said that he wanted to take the banner as his trophy for a church deaconess, who offered to buy him a used car worth $10,000 if he was successful, and was also motivated by a money award from a UVA secret society that he wanted to join, according to the North's state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

"My reward for my crime was so much smaller than the rewards that the Z Society and the Friendship United Methodist Church get from the United States administration," he said during the news conference, which was aired by CNN and AP.

A second Virginia day care teacher has been convicted of child cruelty, among other counts, for her part in creating an abusive atmosphere for two-year-olds in her care that prosecutors described as a "baby fight club."

Kierra Spriggs, 26, was convicted on Thursday on four felony counts of child cruelty and two misdemeanor counts of assault and battery, AP reported. She was acquitted of 14 counts, while a judge threw out three misdemeanor convictions for contributing to the delinquency of a minor because prosecutors failed to offer sufficient evidence.

A jury recommended jail sentences ranging from three to 12 months for the six counts for which she was convicted. Spriggs also faces an additional jail term of almost three years when she is officially sentenced in May.

College-educated elites, on behalf of corporations, carried out the savage neoliberal assault on the working poor. Now they are being made to pay. Their duplicity—embodied in politicians such as Bill and Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama—succeeded for decades. These elites, many from East Coast Ivy League schools, spoke the language of values—civility, inclusivity, a condemnation of overt racism and bigotry, a concern for the middle class—while thrusting a knife into the back of the underclass for their corporate masters. This game has ended.

There are tens of millions of Americans, especially lower-class whites, rightfully enraged at what has been done to them, their families and their communities. They have risen up to reject the neoliberal policies and political correctness imposed on them by college-educated elites from both political parties: Lower-class whites are embracing an American fascism.

These Americans want a kind of freedom—a freedom to hate. They want the freedom to use words like "nigger," "kike," "spic," "chink," "raghead" and "fag." They want the freedom to idealize violence and the gun culture. They want the freedom to have enemies, to physically assault Muslims, undocumented workers, African-Americans, homosexuals and anyone who dares criticize their cryptofascism. They want the freedom to celebrate historical movements and figures that the college-educated elites condemn, including the Ku Klux Klan and the Confederacy. They want the freedom to ridicule and dismiss intellectuals, ideas, science and culture. They want the freedom to silence those who have been telling them how to behave. And they want the freedom to revel in hypermasculinity, racism, sexism and white patriarchy. These are the core sentiments of fascism. These sentiments are engendered by the collapse of the liberal state.

A frequent mistake that many people make when considering the concept of social or economic collapse is to imagine how people and groups will behave tomorrow based on how people behave today. It is, though, extremely difficult to predict human behavior in the face of terminal chaos. What we might expect, or what Hollywood fantasy might showcase for entertainment purposes, may not be what actually happens when society breaks down.

It is also important to note that social and economic destabilization is usually a process, not an immediate event. This actually works in the favor of liberty activists and the preparedness minded. As a system moves through the stages of a breakdown, certain signals in the psychology of the population can be observed, and this gives us a warning as to how far down the rabbit hole we have actually gone.

Except in the case of a nuclear or EMP (electromagnetic pulse) event (which unfortunately are concerns because of the powder keg situation in Syria), vigilant liberty proponents could have considerably more time than the average person to preposition themselves safely. That said, there will be a host of expanding problems of a psychological nature we will have to deal with before, during and after the final leg down in the unfolding mess that internationalists often refer to as the "great global reset."

The following list is based on social behavior patterns commonly seen during systemic crashes through modern history (the past 100 years). These are some of the stupid things people do as they begin to realize, at least subconsciously, that a SHTF scenario is in progress.

Disabled people are unfairly impacted by the Tories' 'bedroom tax,' lawyers for five appeal cases told the Supreme Court on Monday.

Campaigners for disability rights and women's groups gathered outside the Supreme Court as judges heard five appeals that claim the subsidy discriminates against vulnerable citizens. The cases previously failed in both the High Court and the Court of Appeal.

One of the claimants, Charlotte Carmichael, suffers from spina bifida, which means she is forced to sleep in a fixed position in a hospital bed. Living in a two-bedroom house in Manchester, Carmichael and her husband do not have enough space in one bedroom for two beds. She therefore relies on the extra room. They are nevertheless lumbered with a 14 percent tax on their benefits.

The bedroom tax, also called 'under-occupancy' or the 'spare room subsidy,' is a change to housing benefits that targets benefit claimants with spare bedrooms. Having one unused bedroom results in a 14 percent cut in housing benefit, while having two or more spare bedrooms results in a 25 percent cut.

Activist John Ingleson, who launched a petition against the tax that has gained more than 15,000 signatures, called on Prime Minister David Cameron to stop "punishing the poor and powerless."

"Don't make the poor pay with their homes to subsidize tax breaks for the rich. If the billions lost to corporate tax dodgers and very rich individuals were collected instead of cutting tax-collectors' jobs then we could take care of the sick and vulnerable, easily!

Four people were arrested after Horry County Police learned of extensive, and disturbing, sexual assaults being committed on two 4-year-old children over the course of a five month span.

Lt. Mark Bonner with Horry County Police says detectives received information on January 25 of sex crimes committed against two young children. Detectives spoke with the children, two 4-year-old victims, and learned that they were being sexually abused by their parents and friends of their parents.

Forensic interviews of the children revealed that the sex crimes occurred at multiple locations in Horry County, according to Lt. Bonner.

In an incident report from Horry County Police documenting the abuse, officers note that they spoke with an individual who stated she had been providing counseling to the young victims since May 1, 2015, after a Department of Social Services investigation revealed the children were "being forced to have sex with their siblings and their parents."

During the investigation, detectives learned that some of the sexual assaults took place in Horry County at a location the victims referred to as "the dance club." That location was later identified as Chez Joey, a strip club located at 716 Seaboard Street in Myrtle Beach, according to the report.

The report details how the children would go to work with Lindsey D. Honeycutt, one of the four alleged child molesters, who was a dancer at Chez Joey. While at the club, the children were forced to perform different sex acts, the report states.

BlackRock's Gold ETF [exchange traded fund] (IAU) has seen fund inflows every day in 2016 (no outflows at all) and with the stock trading above its NAV [net asset value] for most of the year, the world's largest asset manager has made a significant decision:

• *BLACKROCK SAYS ISSUANCE OF GOLD TRUST SHARES SUSPENDED
• *BLACKROCK SAYS SUSPENSION DUE TO DEMAND FOR GOLD