Society's ChildS


Pistol

Oklahoma suspect, still on the run, kills 2 family members with AK-47 after shooting & injuring 2 cops


RT
Mon, 24 Oct 2016 06:09 UTC
Police
© Shannon Stapleton / Reuters
A suspect is on the run from police after reportedly shooting two people dead in Oklahoma. He is armed with an AK-47 and allegedly shot two officers and a woman earlier. He has also reportedly stolen multiple vehicles.

The suspect has been identified as 38-year-old Michael Vance.
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Airplane

Five French military officials killed en route to Libya in aircraft crash outside Malta airport

Matthew Vella and Miriam Dalli
Malta Today
Mon, 24 Oct 2016 07:43 UTC
Malta plane crash
© Laurent Azzopardi/FacebookA video still from an eyewitness video by Laurent Azzopardi/Facebook
Military turboprop aircraft crashed outside the Malta airport runway shortly after take-off at 7:30am - No survivors reported among five French military officials en route to Libya

A small-engine aircraft has crash-landed in Safi after developing engine trouble the minute it took to air from the MIA runway, in a tragic accident that police say left five dead. Witnesses on site of the rescue described the scene as a pile of charred, black metal parts, owing to the scale of the explosion that ensued as the aircraft, a Fairchild Metroliner, crashed into the ground.

Military sources told Malta Today the small jet was departing to head to Misrata in northwestern Libya, on an anti-human trafficking mission. The EU border agency Frontex has confirmed that the plane was not one of its aircraft, and first reports suggest the crew was French. Earlier reports that the plane belonged to the Luxembourgish military have not yet been confirmed.


Comment: Misrata is 'ISIS HQ' in Libya. It's also crawling with American Special Forces. What were these French military officials really going there for?


A plane-spotter who witnessed the accident said he was just packing up his equipment when the plane crash-landed at around 7:30am. "It was an explosion, a right ball of fire," a visibly-shaken William Farrugia, 19, said.

The aircraft crash-landed on the road between Safi and Kirkop, right outside the MIA runway. The airplane was seen rising in the air and then nosediving back into the ground. The explosion was caught in dramatic footage by a motorist driving along the road.


Comment: EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini said that European Union's officials were not involved in the deadly military transport plane crash in southern Malta, and the flight was not related to the bloc's activities.

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Fire

Multiple blasts from suspected gas cylinder storage facility in Italy


RT
Mon, 24 Oct 2016 02:53 UTC
Pordenone gas blasts
© twitter/Daniele Lorenzon
Alarmed witnesses in the northeast Italian province of Pordenone have uploaded videos of a series of large and fiery blasts that shook the sleepy streets of a town at night. The explosions reportedly took place in a storage facility with gas cylinders.

It was not immediately clear if anyone was hurt in the blasts, but ambulances could be seen rushing to the scene, where a fire brigade was already working. The cause of the fire was not immediately clear.


Onlookers can be seen ducking and running away in a Twitter video filmed by Daniele Lorenzon close to the site as one of the explosions goes off. Earlier, Lorenzon posted a video filmed from a distance, where the blasts are seen lighting up the sky one-by-one in rapid succession. "Goodbye, just in case, huh," said the caption to the tweet.

Comment: Some other gas explosions so far this month include:

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Bell

Finland's Premier Freezes Pay in Bid to Save Economy

Raine Tiessalo
Bloomberg
Mon, 24 Oct 2016 06:12 UTC
Finland's Premier
© Tomi Setala/Bloomberg
The Nordic region's only euro member is still struggling with austerity.

After being stripped of its top AAA credit grade at all three major ratings companies, the government is asking Finns to tighten their belts to keep up with the Germans and the Swedes, who are more productive exporters. Failure to do so will jeopardize Finland's path away from economic limbo and growing indebtedness, the government warns.

Prime Minister Juha Sipila, a self-made millionaire who won elections last year on pledges to reinvigorate Finland's ailing post-Nokia economy, says exports are the key to economic success. But that requires Finns to produce more without getting more pay if the nation is to close a competitiveness gap as wide as 15 percent relative to its main trading partners.

"We're behind our main competitor countries," Sipila said in an interview in Helsinki on Wednesday. "Our problem is that exports are lagging and that growth relies on domestic demand." But if the economy is to recover, "exports should become the growth motor again."
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Bomb

'Highway to hell': Top German comedian slams NATO 'aggressive war machine'


RT
Mon, 24 Oct 2016 05:56 UTC
NATO Tank
© Ints Kalnins/ReutersOn the way to the greatest shew on earth, because in the West, there's a sucker born every minute. They're called "Liberals."
A top-billing standup comedian from Germany, Lisa Fitz, has dedicated one of her recent shows to global politics. She touched upon issues such as the US acting as a "world policeman" and NATO turning into a "monster."

It cost her some cheers and laughs, but made the audience think, she told RT.
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Info

Retired Army Major: "Everything's in Place" to Round Up Antiwar Dissenters for Military Detention

Justin Gardner
Free Thought Project
Sun, 23 Oct 2016 00:00 UTC
antiwar
While mainstream media has dutifully echoed the U.S. government narrative that Russia is to blame for increasing tensions, we at the Free Thought Project have reported on the numerous ways in which the U.S. has actually been the provocateur.

Earlier in 2016, a U.S. military official said the U.S. "needs and wants Russia as an enemy," which was followed by a litany of falsehoods about Russian threats from elected and appointed officials. A hacked email showed a NATO general plotting conflict with Russia, as American and NATO military forces amass along Russia's borders.

U.S. intervention in Syria has provided the perfect context for escalating tensions. In its effort to topple the Assad government, the U.S. nurtured the Salafist fundamentalist sect in Syria, which went on to become a major part of ISIS. As U.S. military operations get dangerously close to Syrian or Russian forces (invited there by Assad), any "accidental" strike could be the spark for World War III.

If this were not disturbing enough, the reality in the homeland is downright frightening. Since 9/11, the U.S. military/surveillance state has been able to use - and perpetuate - the specter of terrorism to dismantle the rights of its citizens.

In order to sustain public support for its war-making, the State must suppress dissent. If it cannot achieve this through media control and other subtle means, it is prepared to take more forceful measures.

Comment: While this type of information may have the effect of causing a chill to run down one's spine, it would seem that by just knowing of it (and even sharing what we know of it where appropriate), affords us the possibility of working through such facts about our reality in this time and place. The horrors of history made reference to in the article ie. Nazi Germany, are now but a stone's throw away for those who now find themselves living in Amerika - or anywhere the "exceptional nation" sets its malevolent gaze upon. But we are now afforded a choice: We can see it for what it is, or, we can deny the truth of it to ourselves (and others) and further risk being subject to it.

See: Knowledge and Freedom: Antidote to the rising fascism

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Pirates

Interview with Gordon Hahn: How ISIS Threatens Russia

Yulia Netesova
Rethinking Russia
Wed, 31 Aug 2016 23:18 UTC
gordon hahn
In late July 2016 terrorist organization Islamic State (Islamic State - terrorist organization forbidden in Russia), responsible for a number of recent brutal attacks across Europe and Middle East, declared jihad against Russia. It took two weeks for the first ISIS terrorist attack to happen: in mid-August two young men from Chechnya attacked with axes the policemen at the police station in the Moscow Region. Rethinking Russia spoke to Gordon Hahn - analyst, geostrategist and author of Russia's Islamic Threat (2007) and The Caucasus Emirate Mujahedin: Global Jihadism in Russia's North Caucasus and Beyond (2014) - about whether this threat should be taken seriously, about the dynamics in the relations between ISIS and Russian jihadists and why Dagestan is currently the hotbed of the jihadism in Russia.

Rethinking Russia: About a month ago Islamic State called on their members to carry out jihad against Russia. Why now and why Russia?

Gordon Hahn: Russia has been fighting its own jihadi insurgency for approximately two decades since mid 1990s when the separatist Chechen Republic Ichkeria was formed and where the initial radical nationalist movement took on jihadi elements and was partially tied to Al Qaeda. This jihadi movement with leaders such as Shamil Basaev and Khattab has been present ever since in the North Caucasus and somewhat in Tatarstan and Bashkortostan. That is the first reason for ISIS to turn its attention to Russia.
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Ambulance

Civilians in East Aleppo Call on UN to Make 'Rebels' Let Them Flee


Fars News Agency
Sat, 22 Oct 2016 23:13 UTC
mistura
The civilians of Aleppo need you, Staffan. Where are you now that Nusra refused your offer to escort them out of Aleppo?
A large number of people in militant-held districts in Aleppo city in Northern Syrian called on the UN Special Envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, to force Jeish al-Fatah's leaders to stop blocking civilians' exit from the Eastern districts of the city, local sources said Saturday.

"Civilians in the Eastern districts of Aleppo city have been calling their relative and friends in government-held neighborhoods of the city to urge UN officials, mainly de Mistura, to help them leave Aleppo via six government-established corridors," the sources said.

"They have reported in their phone calls with friends and relatives that the terrorist groups open fire at anyone who trying to escape Aleppo," the local sources said.

Comment: See also: Nusra Rejects Ceasefire, Renewed Jihadi Attack On Aleppo in the Works

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Bizarro Earth

San Francisco's 58-story Millennium Tower is upscale, but literally sinking fast

Peter H. King
Los Angeles Times
Sat, 22 Oct 2016 00:00 UTC
Millennium Tower in Los Angeles
© Genaro Molina / Los Angeles TimesA pedestrian walks past the luxury Millennium Tower, a 58-story high rise in San Francisco.
Looking back, Pamela Buttery can recall an early clue that something could be amiss at the luxury high-rise where she's lived for the past six years.

A golfer, she sometimes practiced her putting indoors, tapping the ball toward a portable cup on the hardwood floor in her living room.

If Buttery missed, the ball would carom off the wall and strangely change course, swerving right and gaining momentum as it rolled toward the northwest corner of her condo. At which point, she said, her cat Maximus would "go racing after the ball."

It became a game between them, but it also presaged what in the past several months has become a sobering reality for the retired real estate developer and other residents of the 58-story Millennium Tower:
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Ambulance

Powerful gas explosion rips through apartment building in central Russia, killing 3, injuring 13


RT
Sun, 23 Oct 2016 11:57 UTC
gas explosion central russia
© admrzn.ru
At least three people died and 13 were injured after a powerful gas explosion ripped through a block of flats in the Russian city of Ryazan. The blast ripped through several floors, practically destroying flats and raining concrete blocks on cars parked below.

"A total of 16 people were injured, three of whom died, while 13 needed medical care. Four were hospitalized, and outpatient care was provided to nine others," TASS news agency was told by the local branch of Russia's Emergencies and Disaster Response service.

Earlier reports suggested 16 people were injured and three had died.

Photos and videos of the devastated apartment block in Ryazan, a city some 200 kilometers southeast of Moscow, emerged early Sunday, with the incident taking place late at night.
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