Society's ChildS


Red Flag

Refugee planet: 65.3 million people have been displaced around the world due to war & persecution

Nadia Prupis
Common Dreams
Mon, 20 Jun 2016 13:05 UTC
refugees
An unprecedented 65.3 million people have been displaced around the world due to war and persecution, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) reported on Monday.

The new figure is not only a 21st century record, it is also the first time that the numbers have surpassed 60 million—which means one in every 113 people worldwide is now either an asylum-seeker, internally displaced, or a refugee, the UN said. Half of them are children.

Over the past five years, forced displacement has increased quicker than ever due to long-standing conflicts in regions like Somalia and Afghanistan; "dramatic" escalations in newly destabilized countries like Syria, Yemen, and Ukraine; and a growing resistance from other nations to providing asylum for refugees, the UN reported.

Comment: The following article is from December 2015, in 18 months the number of refugees has increased dramatically!

NATO's 'gift' to the world: Number of people forced to flee their home countries this year has exceeded all previous records
In six months in 2015 over 20 million people fled wars and persecution, more than in the whole of 2014, the UN has reported. Total global forced displacement this year is likely to exceed all previous records and go beyond 60 million people.

"2015 is on track to see worldwide forced displacement exceeding 60 million for the first time - 1 in every 122 humans is today someone who has been forced to flee their homes," the report said.


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2 + 2 = 4

Economic insiders warn of upcoming system failure

Stefan Gleason
Activist Post
Sat, 25 Jun 2016 00:00 UTC
System Failure
With each passing day, systemic risks in the financial system become greater. Smart money insiders and billionaire investors are taking note - and taking defensive actions.

Mega-billionaire Carl Icahn, whose long-term track record is unrivaled, recently warned that "there will be a day of reckoning unless we get fiscal stimulus." Icahn's hedge fund is betting on a day of reckoning scenario. He has gone 150% net short the stock market while holding commodity-related positions to the long side.

International currency speculator and leftist financier George Soros has slashed his fund's overall equity holdings by 25%. Like him or not, Soros is no dummy when it comes to the financial system. He is an establishment insider who apparently sees turbulent times ahead. He owns a not insignificant amount of gold, and his largest single equity holding now is Barrick Gold (NYSE:ABX), a major gold mining company.

"The system itself is at risk," warns bond market wizard Bill Gross. In his latest market commentary, Gross cites "artificially high asset prices and a distortion of future risk relative to potential return."
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Treasure Chest

Income inequality widening as the wealthiest get richer at the expense of the poor

Nadia Prupis
Common Dreams
Fri, 24 Jun 2016 00:00 UTC
income inequality
© Glenn Halog/flickr/cc"For every person with more than $30 million, there are over 4800 people living in extreme poverty," said Jenny Ricks of the Fight Inequality Alliance.
The wealth gap keeps growing as the world's richest get richer at the expense of the poor, according to a new study released this week by an alliance of major organizations.

The World Wealth Report from Oxfam, Greenpeace, and other groups found that while the total number of millionaires in the world jumped to 15.4 million—up by nearly 5 million since 2009—more than 702 million people remain in poverty around the globe.

"For every person with more than $30 million, there are over 4800 people living in extreme poverty," said Jenny Ricks of the Fight Inequality Alliance. "This gross inequality is a symptom of an unjust and unfair economic system that allows the rich to get richer at the expense of the poor."
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Bad Guys

Florida cops shoot schizophrenic inmate through cell door with bullet similar to flashbang grenade


RT
Sat, 25 Jun 2016 02:45 UTC
cops shoot mathew trevino
Attorneys for Mathew Trevino, 30, argue that Pasco deputies at the Land O'Lakes jail used excessive force on their client while in their custody at the Land O'Lakes jail on August 5, 2015.
Matthew Trevino, an Army veteran with a history of mental illness, was having a schizophrenic episode in the Pasco County Jail. When he resisted detention deputies, guards escalated things by shooting him with a 12-gauge shotgun loaded with a Nova round.

Newly-released footage from inside Florida's Pasco County Jail shows the events of August 5, 2015, which sent Trevino to a Veterans Affairs hospital for months and required three surgeries to repair a wound, the Tampa Bay Times reported

The video shows a distressed Trevino, in the throes of a mental episode, resisting deputies as they ask him to extend his hands to handcuff him and search his cell. When he refuses, a deputy produces a shotgun with a Nova distraction round - a bullet akin to a flashbang grenade that is meant to be concussive - and shoots him.
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Whistle

A 1000-dog-rescue by animal rights activists, destined for slaughter at China's Yulin festival

Steve Myall, Kara O'Neill
Mirror
Thu, 23 Jun 2016 15:23 UTC
cages dogs
© www.esdaw.euHundreds of thousands of dogs snatched for slaughter.
The pooches were being kept in dark, dingy cages and were clearly frightened when rescuers burst in to save them. An emotional video captures the moment a group of animal rights activists save more than 1,000 dogs destined for slaughter at the barbaric Yulin Festival in China.



The festival, which starts today, sees Chinese traders bring animals from all over the country to be butchered and sold for their meat. In the footage, a group of rescuers are seen carrying some of the dogs to safety. The animals appear to have been kept in a dark cage and squeal in terror as they are approached by humans.

Sadly, the heartbreaking scenes are all too familiar in Yulin, where it's estimated that around 10 million dogs are slaughtered by the dog meat industry in China alone. Dog is a popular winter food in parts of China and Korea, where the rich meat is believed to help keep people warm.

Comment: Man is not always Dog's best friend. But fortunately some truly are.

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Ambulance

8-year-old overdoses on ADHD meds: Mom believes the cause was 'pharmacist's sloppy work'

Everett Numbers
The Antimedia
Tue, 21 Jun 2016 15:41 UTC
ADHD overdose
© cbsnews.com
An eight-year-old boy who loved to dance recently died as a result of taking 1,000 times the recommended dose of his hyperactivity medication, his mother believes. Now, the pharmacist who allegedly made the allegedly toxic mixture of drugs is under scrutiny.

Jake Steinbrecher had used Clonidine prescription pills for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) since he was five years old, but on October 31, 2015, he ingested about as much of the medication as all the prior three years combined. Tests showed 30mg in his system as opposed to the .03mg he was prescribed.
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Star of David

'Holocaust survivor' Joseph Hirt admits he made up his story to 'keep Holocaust memories alive'

Alan Yuhas
The Guardian (UK)
Fri, 24 Jun 2016 18:53 UTC
Joseph Hirt
© Suzette Wenger/LNP Media Group IncJoseph Hirt
A Pennsylvania man who claimed for years to have escaped from Auschwitz, met track and field star Jesse Owens and Nazi doctor Josef Mengele, confessed on Friday that he had fabricated the entire story.

"I am writing today to apologize publicly for harm caused to anyone because of my inserting myself into the descriptions of life in Auschwitz," Joseph Hirt, 86, wrote in a letter sent to his local paper, LNP, this week. "I was not a prisoner there. I did not intend to lessen or overshadow the events which truly happened there by falsely claiming to have been personally involved."


Comment: You should have thought about that before you committed such a fraud, Mr. Hirt.


"I was wrong. I ask forgiveness," he added. "I determined at that moment to do everything in my power to prevent the loss of the truth about wartime life (and death) at Auschwitz."
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Beaker

Bill passed to curb animal testing

Alexa Erickson
Collective Evolution
Fri, 24 Jun 2016 17:53 UTC
monkey
Every year, millions of animals are killed in U.S. lab tests and experiments, with the vast majority of them being mice, rats, birds, and fish. But on Tuesday, President Obama signed a revision of TSCA, the Toxic Substances Act, at the White House.

The revisions to the 40-year-old bill include the overhaul of government regulation of toxic chemicals—a necessary move toward protecting Americans' health, as well as the wellbeing of their land and water from harmful substances. It also includes an explicit decree from Congress to minimize animal testing and to create a clear preference for the development and use of alternative methods and strategies.

The section of the bill relating to animal testing marks a hard-fought battle that will accelerate the movement away from animal tests for chemicals, pesticides, biocides, cosmetics, and any substance that has the potential to be dangerous.

Comment: For more on the barbaric practice of animal experimentation see the documentary Lethal Medicine.

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Arrow Up

Palestinian refugees in occupied territories increased by 1M over past ten years

Allison Deger
Mondoweiss
Wed, 22 Jun 2016 00:00 UTC
mural we want to return
© ukmediawatch.org
In the last decade the number of Palestinian refugees in the West Bank and Gaza has increased by one million, according to a survey conducted by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) in advance of World Refugee Day. Palestinian refugees registered with the United Nations now number 5.6 million people, an increase from 5.3 million the year before. A further 2.7 million unlisted refugees are estimated to be living in the occupied territories and abroad.

The largest share of Palestinian refugees reside in the occupied territories. More than three quarters of the total population of the Gaza Strip, and around one quarter of the Palestinian population in the West Bank, are refugees.

Within the occupied Palestinian territories refugees have slowly integrated into the fabric of society. Initially refugee camps were squalid and poorly maintained tent shelters. In the 1960s they were built up into barracks of one-room cement block homes, without restrooms. Over time residents expanded the dwellings. By the 1990s they resembled cramped urban quarters. During the political instability of the first Intifada Israeli forces constructed barbed wires and walls around the neighborhoods.

Today, the camps are overpopulated, with narrow streets. Their residents have the highest unemployment rates in Palestinian society (32.3 percent, compared to 21.4 percent unemployment in the general population). A number of refugee camps in the West Bank are located outside Palestinian hubs, in close range to Israeli settlements and in regions under the security control of Israeli forces. In Gaza, a majority rely on food assistance from the United Nations.
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Nuke

Water leak causes shutdown of Indian Point nuclear plant


RT
Sat, 25 Jun 2016 13:37 UTC
Indian Point power plant
A nuclear reactor unit at Indian Point has been closed down to repair a water leak, plant officials said. New York's aging nuclear plant has been plagued by problems, and is currently operating under a temporary license.

Nuclear control room operators removed Unit 2 reactor from service on Friday morning to allow for the completion of weld repairs to a pipe that had been leaking "a small amount of Hudson River water."

"There is no ongoing leak and there was no challenge to safety, however the plant needs to be shut down for weld repairs to be completed, in accordance with Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) regulations," Entergy Corporation said in a released statement.

Engineers found a leaking pipe "in a non-radioactive system" that was "leaking at about one drop [of water] every five seconds."

Comment: This is a catastrophe in the making.

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