Society's ChildS


Hourglass

Elderly Chinese committing suicide to avoid province's looming ban on burials

Man, stroller, smashed coffins
© www.dailymail.co.ukFather and son stroll by a pile of smashed coffins.
Anhui Province, China, is to ban all burials after June 1.
Anyone who dies after the deadline will have to be cremated.
Officials smash up coffins to drive the point home.

Dozens of elderly Chinese people have been killing themselves to avoid a looming ban on burials.

The elderly suicides want to make sure their deaths are registered before a June 1 deadline, after which Anhui province authorities will close all cemeteries.

Anyone who dies after that date will have to be cremated because, authorities say, cemeteries are taking up too much space.

In order to drive the message home council officials have been visiting funeral parlours and smashing up coffins.

The draconian move has only hastened the rate of suicide as elderly people rush to guarantee one of the few remaining.

The new rules were published on April 1. Regional officials said: 'Before June 1 people can still consign their bodies for burial, but after that the only option offered will be cremation.'

In urban areas it has meant little change, but in rural areas the idea of cremation is abhorrent to many and there has been extreme opposition.

Comment: Statistics report China has an aging population with over nine million burials every year. It is running out of space as urban cemeteries are nearing capacity and prices are skyrocketing for burial plots. The term "grave slave" describes a generation that must work hard simply to afford the the burials of themselves, their parents and ongoing cemetery payments.


Airplane

Russian budget airline Dobrolet charges $60 for Crimea flights

Dobrolet
© RIA Novosti / Press service of Dobrolet
Aeroflot's new budget airline subsidiary Dobrolet is to start flights to Crimea. The airline started offering seats from Moscow to Simferopol at $60 return.

Tickets went on sale on May 26, and within 24 hours 4,000 had been snapped up. The head of Aeroflot Vitaly Savelyev said Dobrolet will fly four times daily between the two cities.

The first flight is scheduled on June 11. The new airline plans to offer seats at least 15-20 percent lower than an average economy class fare with Aeroflot. Like many budget airlines extra services will come at a price, making the maximum fare $135, for the three hour flight.

Dobrolet was granted its operating certificate on May 19, and has available two Boeing 737 NG jets, each able to carry 189 passengers, and a single Russian built Sukhoi SSJ-100 Superjet. By the end of the year the company plans to be operating eight Boeing aircraft. Dobrolet is a wholly owned subsidiary of Aeroflot, which intends to invest $100 million in the venture in the next two years.

According to Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, by June 1 Crimea will have direct flights to 30 cities in Russia. Last year it was possible to reach the peninsula from just seven Russian cities. The number of flights will be increased to 330 which is triple the number in 2013.

In the beginning the low cost airline will only fly to Crimea. In March Medvedev asked Aeroflot to involve a cheap carrier in the peninsula transportation program. In the future Dobrolet intends to expand its network of flights to Krasnodar, St. Petersburg, Sochi and Kaliningrad by the end of the year.

Low cost airlines became a possibility in Russia after the State Duma allowed airlines to sell no-refundable tickets, to employ foreign pilots, and to charge for additional items such as food, and baggage handling.

Black Magic

Psychopathic pro-surfer/model proves she's a monster

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© Via facebook
A Hawaii woman who bills herself as a professional surfer and model was arrested Wednesday night for attempted murder connected to a road rage incident.

Honolulu police say Jill Anjuli Hansen, 30, tried to kill an elderly woman in Waikiki by running her over with a vehicle, KHON-TV reported. Charges are currently pending.

The elderly woman, identified as 73-year-old Elizabeth Conklin, was hospitalized with serious injuries, including one to her head, after the 30-year-old drove a car into her.

Hansen was about to hit the woman a second time before a maintenance worker at the scene said he picked up a crowbar and smashed her windshield, causing the woman to abandon her car and flee the scene.

Pistol

Woman wins $650,000 settlement after trigger happy police officer shoots her during a drug raid in the wrong apartment

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© Shutterstock
A New York woman has reached a $650,000 settlement with Nassau County after a police officer accidentally shot her while investigating a drug case involving her downstairs neighbors.

Iyanna Davis was shot in the breast in 2010 after the officer mistakenly burst into her apartment during a drug investigation, reported Newsday.

The bullet then went through her abdomen and both thighs.

The officer said his assault rifle went off accidentally, and he was cleared of any wrongdoing by an internal police investigation.

Davis was pleased by the settlement and felt that justice was served, her attorney said.

She filed a civil rights suit in March against the county in federal court, and the settlement was reached six days into a trial and before jurors began deliberating.

Pistol

Myrtle Beach shootings leave 3 dead, 2 injured at Bermuda Sands Resort

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© Janet Blackmon Morgan Myrtle Beach Police investigate where two bodies are on the walkway that's over a water park in front of Bermuda Sands Resort late Saturday, May 24, 2014
Those visiting Myrtle Beach for Memorial Day weekend said they were saddened to hear of the shootings Saturday night that killed three people and hospitalized two others.

Jamie Williams, 28, of Ladson, and Devonte Dantzler, 21, and Sandy Gaddis Barnwell, 22, both of Summerville were pronounced dead by Horry County deputy coroner Darris Fowler Saturday. Fowler said all three died from trauma to vital organs due to gunshot wounds sustained during a shooting at Bermuda Sands Resort on First Avenue North.

Thousands traveled to the Grand Strand to participate in Atlantic Beach BikeFest during Memorial Day weekend and some said the two shootings, which happened within hours of each other about seven blocks apart, will likely keep them from coming back.

Ambulance

40 killed after express train crashes into another in India

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Rescue workers attempt to make their way through the mangle Gorakhdham Express, which rammed into a goods train at Chureb station
* Gorakhpur Express was travelling at high speed and slammed on brakes

* Six cars derailed with one car with unreserved seating taking the brunt

* Although the car sits 72, they are often filled beyond capacity

An express train smashed into into a parked freight train in northern India today, killing at least 40 people and reducing cars to heaps of torn and twisted metal.

The Gorakhpur Express passenger train was travelling at high speed and slammed on its brakes in an attempt to stop, but hit the train sitting on the tracks near a railway station in Uttar Pradesh state, district magistrate Bharat Lal said.

Six of the cars on the express train derailed, with one car with unreserved seating taking the brunt of the impact and accounting for most of the 40 deaths so far counted, senior police officer Amrendra Sainger said.


Map

Germany world's 2nd immigration destination with spike of almost 40%

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© Reuters/Stoyan NenovPeople put their luggage in a bus departing from Sofia's central bus station to London via Austria, Germany and France January 2, 2014.
Germany has become the second most popular immigration destination after the US, overtaking Canada and Australia. New figures by Germany's statistics reveal a spike by 13 percent over 2013 alone.

The latest provisional figures from the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) show the number of people moving to Germany jumping to 1,226,000. Over the same period, 789,000 people left the country.

The majority of those figures were non-German immigrants coming from European Union countries (727,000), with Poland as the top country of origin (189,000), Deutsche Welle reported.

The OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) provided the information on Germany becoming the second most popular country for immigrants, which represents "a boom - without any exaggeration," Thomas Liebig, an expert on international migration in the organization, told Reuters.

"No other OECD country experienced such a rise," he added.

Germany reached the second place in the 2012 already, according to the latest data. Three years earlier, it occupied the eighth place.

Annually, the number of migrants soared by 400,000 people, or 38 percent in 2012. Migrants from other European countries were the majority of the wave.

Most came from Eastern Europe, but increasing numbers were leaving the crisis-hit southern Europe (Spain, Portugal, Greece) for strong economy and stable labor market.

Wreath

Best of the Web: 30 self-defence fighters reported dead, following day of fierce fighting in Donetsk

Around 30 self-defense fighters in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk may have been killed after Ukrainian troops stepped up their offensive in the region. Some of the casualties are a result of an attack on a truck carrying wounded rebels.
Truck overturned in Donetsk
© Unknown
A self-defense fighter in Donetsk told Reuters about 30 to 35 of his comrades had been killed in nearly 24 hours of fighting with Ukrainian forces.

Earlier, the people's governor of the Donetsk Region, Pavel Gubarev, wrote on Facebook, that 35 self-defense fighters were killed and 15 injured.

An overnight attack by Ukrainian troops on a truck carrying wounded rebels reportedly accounts for a portion of the casualties.

Footage by LifeNews shows a truck full of dead bodies. Representatives of the self-defense squads say they cannot yet give the names of those killed; the process of identification has only just began.

"They were wounded. The car was driving them from a battlefield," a masked representative of the self-defense forces in Donetsk told LifeNews. "First snipers shot the driver, then they fired point-blank at the rest from a shoulder-launcher. The survivors were then gunned down by Right Sector militants - no one in the truck survived."

Comment: The fighting is likely to continue for some time as the Kiev junta appears adamant to continue the slaughter. This statement is from Tuesday morning at 8:53 GMT:
Government troops will go on with the military operation until not a single self-defense fighter "is left on the territory of Ukraine," said Vice Premier Vitaly Yarema, as cited by RIA Novosti.



Gold Coins

Getting worried? Now Austria demands an audit of its offshore held gold

Austrian gold coin
© Unknown
First it was Germany, now another AAA-rated European country is starting to get concerned about its hard assets.

Overnight Bloomberg reported that following in Bundesbank's footsteps, Austria will audit its gold reserves located in the UK, which represent 80% of its total gold holdings. This gold reserve reviews held at Bank of England in London will be first conducted by external auditors, Christian Gutleder, a spokesman for the Austrian central bank, says via telephone.

As a reminder, Austria held 80% of its roughly 280 tons of gold in U.K., according to last annual report.

Gutleder explained that the Central bank has checked its reserves regularly in the past, adding that gold reserves haven't changed since 2007. Which begs the question: why check them now then?

According to the official explanation that review comes after euro-skeptic Freedom Party demanded more transparency, repatriation of reserves. Perhaps it is time to rename the Euroskeptic party into the "we doubt our gold is where you say it is" skeptics. A better explanation was provided by the Austrian Trend magazine, which said that "the measure is seen as a consequence of growing public pressure. There is a rising disbelief among Austrians about the existence of the gold."

Cult

Sexual Assault in the Bakken Shale "Man Camps"

man camps
© Evelyn HockstienA man camp outside of Watford City, North Dakota
Former Rosebud Sioux Tribe Police Chief Grace Her Many Horses took a temporary job working in the Bakken Region near Newtown, North Dakota. This Bakken Basin stretches from Montana to North Dakota and it is rich in shale oil supplies. She began work in June of last year until October of the same year. It was her first experience with Man Camps. She seen them before while driving past on the way to pow-wows but this was going to be the very first time she would enter the premises and work the area as a law enforcement officer. This seasoned professional would be in for a rude surprise.

"When I first got there some of the things they talked about, in any of these areas, was they told the men 'Don't go out and party. Don't get drunk and pass out. Because you're going to get raped," she said without hesitation.

It's not exactly something you would expect to hear from a workers' camp but these places are not exactly your ordinary laborers' camps. The depth of depravity and dubious behavior are commonplace in these so-called Man Camps. No one will say that all of the inhabitants are criminal but there is definitely an element there that has rocked the local law enforcement officials to the very core of their morals and value systems.

There are identifiable variables that remain constant: These oil workers usually come from desperate conditions. These workers usually have a family they have left elsewhere so they are not looking to start new relations. These workers are paid an excessive amount of money. These workers are well aware their employment is only temporary. These workers know they are living in a remote environment where law enforcement is already stretched beyond its limits and the temptation for criminal behavior is very strong. Unfortunately, most of America still cannot comprehend this information.

"Sexual assaults on the male population has increased by 75% in that area," she continued. That kind of statistic makes maximum security prisons look like the minor league. "One of the things we ran into while working up there was a 15 year old boy had gone missing. He was found in one of the Man Camps with one of the oil workers. They were passing him around from trailer to trailer."

He went there looking for a job and was hired by individuals within the Man Camp to do light cleaning in and around their personal areas. The young teenager was forced into sex slavery. It's the kind of thing you hear about in the ghettos of third world countries; not in the quiet and remote countryside.

The victims aren't just males but females too. Everyone has heard by now of the missing school teacher that was kidnapped as she was out jogging, repeatedly sexually assaulted, and murdered near one of these Man Camps. The age of the Man Camp victims varies. The assailants are not necessarily looking for male and female adults. They are also going after little girls.

Grace Her Many Horse recalls one specific instance where "We found a crying, naked, four year old girl running down one of the roads right outside of the Man Camp. She had been sexually assaulted."