Society's ChildS


Pistol

Two China diplomats fatally shot, third hospitalized in Philippines


Press TV
Wed, 21 Oct 2015 23:31 UTC
chinese diplomats shot
© Associated PressPolice mark the crime scene with a yellow tape where two Chinese diplomats were killed in Cebu, central Philippines, October 21, 2015.
Two Chinese diplomats have been killed and another injured in a shooting attack at a restaurant in Cebu, the second largest city of the Philippines.

According to police, the deadly attack was carried out at about 1:30 p.m. local time (0530 GMT) Wednesday at a popular restaurant in the trading capital of central Philippines.

The restaurant workers said nine people were in a private room to celebrate the birthday of China's consul general to Cebu, Song Ronghua, who was shot in the neck and taken to a hospital. He is said to be in stable conditions.

"The bullet went clear through (his neck)," said regional police chief, Tom Banas, adding, "We're still trying to determine the motive for the shooting."

The dead staff members are identified as Sun Shan, the deputy consul general, and Hui Li, a finance officer.

Following the shooting attack, police arrested two other Chinese who had been present at the lunch, as well as a consular officer and her husband, on suspicion of involvement in the assault, Banas said, adding that the couple has not cooperated with police, claiming that they are not able to speak English.

A semi-automatic 45 Colt pistol and three bullet shells have been found at the scene of the crime.

China's embassy in the capital, Manila, has refrained from commenting on the incident with a spokeswoman saying that the mission "is still verifying the facts."
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Clipboard

New report finds: TTIP already 'Rewriting the rule book' for European Union food standards

Lauren McCauley
Common Dreams
Sun, 18 Oct 2015 19:54 UTC
Image
© greensefa/flickr/ccMore than 3 million people across Europe have signed a petition calling on the European Commission to scrap the agreement.
The pending Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) will likely spark a "race to the bottom" for national policies that regulate everything from the air we breath to the food we eat and, according to a new report, the controversial pact is already pushing European governments to loosen key food safety standards.

Put forth by the UK-based social justice organization Global Justice now, the report (pdf), published Sunday, highlights a component of the pact known as "regulatory cooperation" or "regulatory coherence," which seeks to establish common standards between the United States and the European Union.

Under the provision, notes the group, multinational corporations are granted the opportunity to influence any new regulation—amounting to a "blueprint for corporate domination."

Comment: People Power! Europeans protest secret US-EU trade deal - TTIP

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Syringe

Cattle rustling makes a comeback: Meth and heroin addicts stealing livestock to feed their habits

Jon Herskovitz and Heide Brandes
Reuters
Tue, 20 Oct 2015 11:28 UTC
cattle rustling
Cattle rustling, a crime associated with the Wild West, is on the rebound in the heart of the U.S. cattle industry, driven largely by ranch hands stealing livestock to get money to feed their drug habits.

The crime has evolved from rustlers on horseback driving their plunder across the range, often portrayed in the early 1960s U.S. TV program Rawhide, to modern-day cowboys using pickup trucks and trailers to make off with cattle.

The recent rise in rustling is driven by the spread of heroin and methamphetamines to rural areas, an issue that has dogged states across the nation. In Oklahoma and neighboring Texas, lonesome cattle grazing on thousand-acre ranches that can fetch about $1,000 to $3,000 at market are proving to be easy targets for rustlers on the down and out.

Among Oklahoma cattle thieves, about 75 percent are doing so to feed addictions, most often to meth amphetamines, according to Jerry Flowers, a retired Oklahoma City police detective and the state's top "cattle cop."

"Some city meth head is going to be kicking your door in and taking your TV. An outlaw here in the country is going to be cutting your fence and taking your cattle," said Flowers.
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Health

F-18 fighter jet crashes in UK, killing U.S. pilot, with eyewitness reports of "explosion in the air" and "massive fireball"


RT
Wed, 21 Oct 2015 19:59 UTC
Image
© HO / ReutersA U.S. FA-18 Hornet fighter-bomber
An F-18 fighter jet has reportedly crashed shortly after take-off from RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk. Local police confirmed the pilot died at the scene. The jet was one of six returning from combat operations in the Middle East and reportedly failed to rendezvous with a fuel tanker before the crash occurred.

A US Air Force official confirmed the crash. However, US Navy officials have reportedly claimed they had no planes in the air when the fighter jet crashed near the British base.

A United States Air Force (USAF) offical has arrived at the scene together with an explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) truck and a bomb squad vehicle to examine the crash site.

Cambridgeshire police have confirmed the pilot was the only crew member to die in the crash.
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Heart - Black

Sexual abuse complaints at Rikers Island suppressed by prison officials


RT
Wed, 21 Oct 2015 19:53 UTC
Rikers Island
© Brendan McDermid / Reuters
Most reports of sexual abuse at New York City's Rikers Island prison were never passed on to the police, the city's public advocate says. The prison reported only two incidents out of the 116 complaints, and none of the 28 accusations of rape.

The city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH), which oversees health care at Rikers, registered 116 reports of sexual abuse in 2014, including 28 separate allegations of rape. They were passed on to the Department of Corrections (DOC), but only two misdemeanor assaults were reported to the NY Police Department, according to court documents filed Monday by the New York City Public Advocate Letitia James.

"Our affidavit proves the disturbing prevalence of sexual harassment and abuse allegations on Rikers Island," James said in a statement following her filing. "I have petitioned the Board of Correction to begin formal rule-making to better protect inmates from sexual violence, and they must start tackling this problem with the urgency it deserves."
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Attention

Jerusalem chaos is a warning of things to come

Jonathan Cook
Jonathan Cook.net
Mon, 19 Oct 2015 18:55 UTC
Al Aqsa Mosque
© Intifada
Among Palestinians and Israelis, the recent upsurge in violence has been variously described as the children's, lone-wolf, Jerusalem and smartphone intifadas. Each describes a distinguishing feature of this round of clashes.

The steady erosion of Fatah and Hamas' authority during the post-Oslo years, as the Palestinian factions proved incapable of protecting their people from the structural violence of the occupation, has driven Palestine's orphaned children to the streets, armed with stones.

The growing hopelessness and sense of abandonment have led a few so-called "lone wolves" to vent their fury on Israelis with improvised weapons such as knives, screwdrivers and cars. These attacks have attracted the most publicity, becoming the equivalent of the second intifada's suicide bomber. But they serve chiefly as a barometer of Palestinian despair.

Jerusalem is the centre of events, with the Palestinians' only unifying symbol, Al Aqsa mosque, at its heart. For Palestinians, the incremental takeover of the compound - and the West's indifference - is like watching the mass dispossession of 1948 play out again in slow motion.

In addition, Jerusalem is the main fault line. Israel's illegal annexation of the city has left Palestinians there in an extreme form of isolation - indefinitely stateless and supremely vulnerable.
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Handcuffs

Former DEA agent receives prison sentence for extortion and money laundering


The Raw Story
Wed, 21 Oct 2015 13:02 UTC
DEA, drug trafficking DEA
A former US Drug Enforcement Administration agent was sentenced to 6.5 years in prison for extortion and money laundering in connection with the Silk Road investigation.

On top of his jail time, Carl Force was ordered to pay $340,000 in restitution and to serve an additional three years of supervised release.

Force, 46, pleaded guilty in July in federal court in San Francisco.

He is one of two federal agents so far who have been charged with crimes in connection with their roles in investigating Silk Road. Force had served as a DEA agent for 15 years.

Shaun Bridges, a special agent with the Secret Service, obtained access to a Silk Road website administrator account just before a huge theft of Bitcoin from the website.

In August, Bridges pleaded guilty to taking more than $800,000 of electronic Bitcoin currency while investigating Silk Road.

Comment:

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Arrow Down

Debtor's prisons: Mississippi city accused of running illegal revenue generation scheme

Colleen Jenkins
Reuters
Wed, 21 Oct 2015 16:45 UTC
Debtors' Prisons
© American TalleyrandDebtors' Prisons.
Poor people are being illegally arrested and jailed in Biloxi, Mississippi, because they cannot afford to pay court fines and fees sought by the city to generate revenue, the American Civil Liberties Union said in a federal lawsuit filed on Wednesday.

The group said the Gulf Coast city known for its casinos and white-sand beaches locks up hundreds of indigent debtors each year for days or weeks at a time without access to a court hearing or lawyer, a violation of their constitutional rights.

"People are being jailed because they're poor," said Nusrat Choudhury, an attorney with the ACLU's Racial Justice Program. "There's no chance for them to explain that their inability to pay is because of poverty."

So-called debtors' prisons across the country have been targeted by lawsuits in recent years. Organizations including the ACLU and the Southern Poverty Law Center say their investigations have shown cities and towns are increasingly trying to raise money by collecting unpaid court fees imposed in traffic and other misdemeanor cases.

Comment: Despite debtor's prisons being illegal in the US since 1833, the poor continue to be preyed on by the American injustice system.

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Apple Green

McDonald's turning teachers into profit centers promoting unhealthy fast food

Brandon Turbeville
Natural Blaze
Mon, 19 Oct 2015 00:00 UTC
mcteachers, mcdonadls
There are times when a corporation comes up with a marketing strategy that is so aggressive you just have to ask "why?"

Unsurprisingly, this is exactly what McDonald's has done with its recent McTeacher's Program, a clever act of marketing that involves enlisting schoolteachers as employees and walking billboards placed in school buildings.

McTeachers "employs" volunteer teachers during evening hours as a fundraising event. Students, parents, and other supporters are urged to patronize McDonald's on the evenings their teacher is "working" so everyone can see their teachers serve up "hamburgers, shakes, and fries."

McDonald's USA claims that schools typically receive between 10 and 20 percent of proceeds toward their fundraiser. Some of it depends on the participating franchises.

This program, however, has drawn the ire of a number of parents, education, and teachers organizations as well as corporate and education watchdog groups. These groups agree that the program essentially turns teachers into walking billboards for McDonald's and that it promotes an unhealthy diet and consumption of fast food.

Comment: These are tactics of dying corporate dinosaur. McDonald's franchises are awash in red ink and the company has plans to close 700 locations. As the company itself stated, and like most corporate giants, profit is their only concern - the health and well-being of future generations is of no concern to these psychopaths.

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Sheriff

No charges against cop accused of helping his brother dispose of his girlfriend's body

John Vibes
The Free Thought Project
Wed, 21 Oct 2015 16:09 UTC
Crystal Rogers, Brooks Houck and son
© facebookCrystal Rogers, Brooks Houck and son
Police Officer Nick Houck is under investigation for helping his brother dispose of his murdered girlfriend's body, and investigators say that forensic evidence ties him to the cover-up. Also, both Nick and his brother Brooks claim that they have temporary amnesia and can't remember anything that happened during the time of the murder.

According to investigators, traces of blood were found on a blanket and trunk of a Bardstown Police cruiser that was registered to Nick Houck.

Detectives say that Brooks Houck confronted his girlfriend about an affair she was having and ended up killing her, then called his cop brother to help him get rid of the evidence.

During an interview after the murder, detectives told Nick about the case that they had against him.
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