Society's ChildS


USA

Is a Trump militia in the works? Twitter group vows to protect Trump supporters following clashes


RT
Sun, 13 Mar 2016 15:07 UTC
trump rally arrest
© William Philpott / ReutersU.S. Secret Service agents detain a man after a disturbance as U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump spoke at Dayton International Airport in Dayton, Ohio March 12, 2016.
Following scuffles at a Trump rally in Chicago on Friday and hours after a man attempted to charge his stage in Ohio, a Twitter account appeared announcing the formation of a volunteer group to protect Trump supporters from "violent far-left agitators."

Things got tense again at a Trump rally in Kansas City on Saturday night, as the GOP frontrunner's arrival prompted heated response from a crowd of protesters.

Kansas City Police pepper sprayed one group of anti-Trump protesters point blank, dispersing part of the crowd and prompting an angry social media response.

Comment: For more on the madness that Trump is stirring up see: Demagoguery and cognitive dissonance: Making America great again?

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Rocket

Two hellfire missiles discovered in plane bound for Portland


AP
Sun, 13 Mar 2016 14:51 UTC
hellfire missiles
© U.S. Navy/Public DomainU.S. Navy soldiers loading a Hellfire missile onto a helicopter.
Serbia's authorities are investigating reports that a cargo package bound for Portland contained two missiles with explosive warheads on a passenger flight from Lebanon.

N1 television said the package with two guided armor-piercing missiles was discovered Saturday by a sniffer dog after an Air Serbia flight from Beirut landed at a Belgrade airport.

Serbian media say documents listed the final destination for the AGM-114 Hellfire missiles as Portland. The American-made projectiles can be fired from air, sea or ground platforms against multiple targets.
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Attention

Amtrak train derails near Dodge City, Kansas


AP
Mon, 14 Mar 2016 14:17 UTC
amtrak crash
Passengers gather after a train derailed near Dodge City, Kan., Monday, March 14, 2016.
The Latest on an Amtrak passenger train that derailed in southwest Kansas. (all times local):

8:15 a.m.

Federal investigators are headed to the scene of an Amtrak train derailment in southwest Kansas.

National Transportation Safety Board spokesman Keith Holloway says the agency is sending a team to investigate Monday's derailment. He says more information will be released once the team arrives in Kansas.

An Amtrak statement says the train was traveling from Los Angeles to Chicago when it derailed just after midnight about 20 miles west of Dodge City. Amtrak says the train had about 128 passengers and 14 crew members on board.
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Stock Up

Foreign investors slowly but surely returning to Russia


Sputnik
Mon, 14 Mar 2016 13:19 UTC
Moscow skyscrapers business
© Wikipedia/GURkenMoscow International Business Center
Portfolio investments in Russian assets are on the rise; for the second week in a row, Emerging Portfolio Fund Research Inc. marked an inflow of capital into Russia-oriented funds. At the same time, some analysts consider the country's assets a leading investment even among other developing economies, Russian business magazine Expert reports.

The week ending March 2 saw passive investment in Russian equity funds grow by $19.4 million, while active investment grew by $30.1 million, for a total of $49.5 million. The week ending March 9, meanwhile, saw passive funds associated with Russia attract $156.2 million, and active investment grow by $21.3 million (for a total of $177.5 million).

"The last time Russia saw such an influx was a year ago, against the backdrop of the conclusion of the Minsk agreements [on peace in Ukraine]," Expert noted, citing Sberbank CIB, the Moscow-based investment banking and asset management firm.

Earlier this month, Bloomberg reported that Russia's battered stock market has proven to offer the best risk-adjusted returns in 2016, adding that "equity investors who have shunned Russia as tumbling oil prices and international sanctions drove wild price swings may have a good reason to take a fresh look at the cheapest stocks in developing nations."
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Info

Merkel's misery deepens as German elections deliver refugee rebuff


Sputnik
Mon, 14 Mar 2016 13:27 UTC
Angela Merkel
© REUTERS/ Fabrizio Bensch
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been left politically damaged after her Christian Democrat (CDU) party suffered significant losses in regional elections, as the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party put on significant gains in regional elections.

Merkel has been heavily criticized over her refugee policy, which has drawn anger from within her own party, Germany as a whole and within the European Union. In regional elections, which saw 12 million voting in the key states of Baden-Württemberg, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saxony-Anhalt, the right-wing AfD party drew significant support.
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People

3 million people take to the streets in Brazil's biggest ever anti-government protest


RT
Mon, 14 Mar 2016 12:30 UTC
Brazil demonstrators
© Nacho Doce / ReutersDemonstrators attend a protest against Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff, part of nationwide protests calling for her impeachment, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, March 13, 2016.
Some 3 million people have taken to the streets of Brazilian cities to demonstrate their disapproval of the country's president, Dilma Rousseff, local media reported.

About 1.4 million people participated in the demonstration in Sao Paulo, and another million in Rio de Janeiro, according to Globo media outlet, citing the event's organizers and the country's security forces.

Protests took place in at least 17 regions across Brazil, Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper reported.

The nation's capital, Brasilia, saw some 100,000 demonstrators surround the National Congress building in the biggest protest since last March, when about 1 million people took to the streets.
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Eye 1

Calais 'Jungle' camp surrounded by far-right activists who rob & terrorize migrants


Sputnik
Mon, 14 Mar 2016 04:07 UTC
A group of far-right young activists reportedly robbed refugees in Calais "Jungle" camp, while impersonating police officers.
far right calais jungle refugee
© REUTERS/ Pascal Rossignol
The robbers, who were taken into custody Wednesday, turned out to be mere teenagers, with ages ranging from 14 to 19. However, the group included the founder of an anti-immigration movement and a couple of protest organizers, reports Sunshine Coast Daily.

Unfortunately, the "activists" resorted to trivial robbery instead of political careers. They have reportedly conducted up to seven attacks since the beginning of the year, stealing cash and mobile phones worth €4,000 total, shouting "police!" whenever someone attempted to intervene.

Comment: These 'camps' and the far right idiots who terrorize them are the disgrace of Europe. The official government reaction isn't much better. While treating the Calais refugees like cattle, not far away in Dunkirk, the local authorities have had to fight tooth and nail with the French government in order to create better living conditions for migrants who otherwise lived with rats and filth. Further reading:

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Heart - Black

Corrupting influence: EU commission relying on chemical industry safety studies in decision to re-license glyphosate

F. William Engdahl
New Eastern Outlook
Sun, 13 Mar 2016 00:00 UTC
Glyphosate
© Photograph by Seth Perlman/AP
In a tale of Brussels corruption almost too crass to believe, the Commission of the European Union is ready to approve a new license for a proven carcinogen, glyphosate, despite international warnings from WHO and independent scientists that it is toxic to humans and animals. Only huge protest has forced the EU to make a surprise postponement of its planned vote to re-approve.

EU Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, Vytenis Andriukaitis, postponed re-licensing of glyphosate this month not because of his taking a morally courageous stand by going against the corrupt EU Commission food safety advisory group, EFSA, and banning renewal of the license for the world's most widely-used weed-killer, glyphosate. He's fully ready to approve the substance. This, despite the fact that a scientific panel of the World Health Organization labeled glyphosate in 2015 as a probable human and animal carcinogen. He postponed only because four EU member states, unexpectedly, refused to approve renewal. Now Andriukaitis and the GMO weed-killer cartel are scheming to find a new way to ram the renewal through.

Glyphosate is a highly toxic chemical that is the major component of Monsanto's Roundup weed-killer, the world's most used weed-killer. In other combinations glyphosate is also sold by most every agrochemical company in the world including BASF, Syngenta, Dow Chemical, DuPont and China's Zhejiang Wynca Chemical.

Comment: Is it irresponsibility or criminal behavior when an institution tasked with protecting the health and safety of a population deliberately ignores the overwhelming evidence of the negative health and environmental impacts of a highly toxic pesticide?

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Eye 2

"I'm not saying, I'm just saying" - how Trump gets away with innuendo and lies that other candidates can't

Jennifer Mercieca
The Conversation
Tue, 08 Mar 2016 00:01 UTC
Trump
© Carlos Barria/ReutersDonald Trump fires up the crowd during a campaign rally in Warren, Michigan.
In an interview last month, George Stephanopoulos asked Donald Trump about his retweet of a follower who insisted that both Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz were ineligible for the presidency.

trump retweet rubio Cruz
© Twitter
Trump dismissed Stephanopoulos' question with "it was a retweet" - as if to say that retweeting someone else's claim meant that he wasn't responsible for the content.

When pressed, Trump continued:
I mean, let people make their own determination. I've never looked at it, George. I honestly have never looked at it. As somebody said, he's not [eligible]. And I retweeted it. I have 14 million people between Twitter and Facebook and Instagram, and I retweet things and we start dialogue and it's very interesting.
It's a response that can be reduced to I'm not saying it, I'm just saying it.

Comment: Dr. Robert Hare's extensive research has produced a Psychopathic checklist:
1. Glibness/superficial charm.
2. Grandiose sense of self-worth.
3. Need for stimulation/proneness to boredom
4. Pathological lying
5. Conning/manipulative
6. Lack of remorse or guilt
7. Shallow affect
8. Callous/lack of empathy
9. Parasitic lifestyle
10. Poor behavioral controls
11. Promiscuous sexual behavior
12. Early behavior problems
13. Lack of realistic, long-term plans
14. Impulsivity
15. Irresponsibility
16. Failure to accept responsibility for own actions
17. Many short-term marital relationships
18. Juvenile delinquency
19. Revocation of conditional release
20. Criminal versatility
Not saying, just saying . . . . . . . .

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House

Bankers' rule: Irish state issues eviction notices to 60 families on behalf of Goldman Sachs vulture fund

Marie O'Halloran
Irish Times
Sun, 13 Mar 2016 20:24 UTC
goldman sachs
Minister for Transport Paschal Donohoe has described as inappropriate and unfair, the issuing of notices to 60 families in West Dublin to quit their rental accommodation after a deal done by a Goldman Sachs vulture fund with indebted developers.

More than 200 houses in Cruise Park, Tyrellstown are likely to be sold as part of the deal, reported by the Sunday Business Post, in which the Goldman Sachs fund, Bethany Property Finance, bought an €89 million loan given by Ulster Bank to Vieira, a company owned by property developers Michael and Richard Larkin.

The €89 million loan was one element of Ulster Bank's major Project Achill portfolio of development loans that the Goldman Sachs fund bought.

The paper reported that 60 of the 208 householders have received notices from Twinlite, a Larkin property company, that their leases would not be renewed, and understood that all 208 homes in the development would be sold. Some tenants have lived in the development for up to 10 years.
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