Society's ChildS


Syringe

France closer to legal euthanasia? Doctor acquitted after giving lethal injections

Nicolas Bonnemaison
© AFP Photo / Gaizka IrozFrench former doctor at the Bayonne hospital Nicolas Bonnemaison (C), flanked by his wife Julie (L) and his lawyers Benoit Ducos-Ader (C, second ground) and Arnaud Dupin (R), leaves the courthouse of Pau, southwestern France, after been acquitted on June 25, 2014
The trial was very emotional, with relatives of several patients testifying in court in the doctor's defense. Bonnemaison himself spoke out during his six-minute final speech, saying that it "is part of the duty of the physician to accompany patients through to the end."

The jurors answered all 14 questions negatively, thus clearing Bonnemaison of all charges, according to Le Monde. The lawyers called the emergency doctor to "put his white coat back on again."

Following the announcement of the verdict, taken after four hours of deliberation, the room cheered, while Bonnemaison stood smiling, hand in hand with his lawyer, AFP reported.

Stormtrooper

SWAT team throws flashbang grenade in baby's crib


In May 2014 a SWAT team blew a hole in this baby's chest-Bounkham Phonesavanh survived a flashbang grenade blast which landed in his crib after a unit raided the house where his family was staying after their own home burnt down. A new report by the American Civil Liberties Unit found that seven civilians were killed and 46 people have been injured in SWAT raids since 2010.Baby Bou is fighting for his life, still covered in burns with a wound that exposes his ribs.

Stock Down

Ukraine trade agreement with EU will mean economic suicide says Putin's aide

Sergei Glazyev
© RIA Novosti / Grigoriy SisoevSergei Glazyev, Adviser to the President of the Russian Federation on Regional Economic Integration
"For Ukraine, signing the agreement is economic suicide," Sergey Glazyev, an economic aide to Russian President Putin said, warning of a sharp currency devaluation, soaring inflation, and lower living standards.

Kiev's new government will sign a free trade agreement with the EU on Friday June 27, after the previous government failed to sign the agreement in November leading to public protest and near all-out civil war.

"There is no doubt that by signing this agreement it will result in an acute devaluation of the hryvnia, an inflation surge and in turn hyperinflation, and a drop in living standards," Glazyev said on Tuesday.

Glazyev, an outspoken opponent of Ukraine joining the EU's orbit, echoed President Putin's warning that Ukraine will no longer be able to import goods from Russia duty-free. Glazyev calculated last year, before the dispute with Russia began, that flooding Ukraine's economy with European goods could cost the country $4 billion, or 2 percent of its GDP.

Quenelle

Wake-up call to the US Government? People on no-fly list must have due process, says Federal Judge

Imam Mohamed Sheikh Abdirahman Kariye
© AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, FilePortland Imam Mohamed Sheikh Abdirahman Kariye, who is one of 15 men who say their rights were violated because they are on the U.S. government's no-fly list, leaves the United Sates Court of Appeals following oral arguments on the ACLU No Fly List challenge, in Portland, Ore. A federal judge has ruled Tuesday, June 24, 2014, that the U.S. government violated the rights of 13 people on its no-fly list by depriving them of their constitutional right to travel, and gave them no adequate way to challenge their placement on the list.
When it comes to its no-fly list, the U.S. government has a choice to make.

More than a dozen Muslims sued after learning they were likely on the list - something the government still won't confirm - and they found their only recourse was to fill out an online appeal form.

Then on Tuesday, a federal judge in Oregon ruled that the Department of Homeland Security must give people a better avenue to pursue a claim that they were wrongly put on the list.

Now, the government can seek some way around U.S. District Judge Anna Brown's order. Or, they can do what she asked.

But Brown didn't want to dictate the rules. In fact, federal prosecutors specifically told her in court, "We urge you not to take over the policymaking."

Comment: Is the tide turning against the psychopaths in power?


Dollars

Collapsed housing market partly to blame for widening US wealth gap

need work
© AFP
The wealth gap in the US has been widening since the Great Recession despite the 2008 financial crisis destroying billions of dollars in wealth. The recovery saw the richest restore much of their losses - unlike average Americans, researchers found.

The wealthiest 5 percent of Americans had 24 times the wealth of the average household in 2013, up significantly from 16.5 times as much in 2007, AP said, quoting a study by the University of Michigan.

A large part of the explanation for the yawning gap that now separates the rich from everybody else in America is the collapsed housing market, which is exactly what brought the global economy to the edge of the abyss in 2008.

In fact, fewer Americans can even afford to put a roof over their heads: The home ownership rate dropped to 64.8 percent in the first quarter of this year, from a high of 69.2 percent in 2004.

Tumbling from historic highs before the housing bubble burst, US home prices are still in the cellar. In the first quarter of this year, 18.8 percent of homeowners with a mortgage still owed more on their homes than they were worth, according to AP, citing real estate data provider Zillow.

Comment: The housing market is not the only reason that Americans are finding it so difficult to make ends meet. The greed of the wealthy and the ongoing war on terror has added to the burden.
Decline and Fall of the American Empire
Inequality in America worse than it was in Ancient Rome
How the Rich Soaked the Rest of Us: The Astonishing Story of the Last Few Decades is a Massive Redistribution of Wealth, as the Rich have Shifted the Tax Burden


Cell Phone

'Get a warrant' to search cellphones, says unanimous Superme Court Justices


In an emphatic defense of privacy in the digital age, a unanimous Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that police generally may not search the cellphones of people they arrest without first getting search warrants.

Cellphones are unlike anything else police may find on someone they arrest, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court. They are "not just another technological convenience," he said, but ubiquitous, increasingly powerful computers that contain vast quantities of personal, sensitive information.

"With all they contain and all they may reveal, they hold for many Americans the privacies of life," Roberts declared. So the message to police about what they should do before rummaging through a cellphone's contents following an arrest is simple: "Get a warrant."

The chief justice acknowledged that barring searches would affect law enforcement, but he said: "Privacy comes at a cost."

By ruling as it did, the court chose not to extend earlier decisions from the 1970s - when cellphone technology was not yet available - that allow police to empty a suspect's pockets and examine whatever they find to ensure officers' safety and prevent the destruction of evidence.

The Obama administration and the state of California, defending cellphone searches, said the phones should have no greater protection from a search than anything else police find. But the defendants in the current cases, backed by civil libertarians, librarians and news media groups, argued that cellphones, especially smartphones, can store troves of sensitive personal information.

"By recognizing that the digital revolution has transformed our expectations of privacy, today's decision is itself revolutionary and will help to protect the privacy rights of all Americans," said American Civil Liberties Union legal director Steven Shapiro.

Comment: Supreme Court's verdict on cell phone privacy is in the right direction. Can Supreme court give similar verdict to NSA who is spying on every body?.


Quenelle

The shoe is on the other foot: Man uses drone to record police activity

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© AFP Photo / Robert MacPherson
The Los Angeles Police Department is waiting for approval before it begins using a pair of recently acquired unmanned aerial vehicles to monitor events in Southern California, but a local man has already beaten them to the punch.

Forty-two-year-old Daniel Saulmon of Torrance, CA has been using a camera-equipped drone of his own during the last month or so to get a bird's-eye-view of area happenings from high above the ground. Coupled with a passion for photographing police activity, Saulmon's unusual hobby has made him well known among local law enforcement officials.

"If there's police activity in my area that's close by, I generally will go and try to record it and document what I see," Saulmon recently told local news network KTLA.

"I don't want to say the police don't supervise themselves, but in a way there might be a little bit of truth to that," he added.


Wreath

Suicide: Chairman of China's largest copper producer jumps from hotel

Copper chairman Jianghong Wei
© UnknownMr. Jianghong Wei serves as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Tongling Nonferrous Metals Group Co., Ltd
While news of high-ranking financial executive suicides in the west have become week to week news, the troubling trend has spread to Asia. A string of Chinese officials have killed themselves in recent months, with speculation linking many to a crackdown on graft. However, as SCMP reports, this weekend saw the head of China's largest copper producer 'fell to this death' from a hotel owned by his company with a state-run newspaper claiming the 52-year-old committed suicide (due to work pressures) following corruption allegations. The timing of Wei Jianghong, chairman of state-owned Tongling Nonferrous Metals Group, suicide appears catalyzed by the growing anxiety over the widespread implications of China's rehypothecation commodity-finance scandal.

That leaves one question - what did he know that markets remain ignorant of for now?

Pistol

Appalling! Accidental shootings kill up to 100 children a year in the US

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© John Minchillo/APHundreds of demonstrators, including members of Moms Demand Action on Gun Sense in America marched across the Brooklyn Bridge to call for tougher gun control laws last week.
Substantially higher figure of accidental gun deaths recorded in gun control groups' research than suggested by federal statistics

The tragedy of children killed accidentally by guns in the US is laid bare in new research that shows that as many as 100 boys and girls aged 14 and under are dying each year, substantially more than federal statistics have previously suggested.

Everytown and Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America - affiliated groups that campaign for stronger gun laws - have studied the incidents of publicly reported unintentional gun deaths involving children in the period of a year from 15 December 2012 to 14 December 2013. The report exposes a long list of lives cut short as a result of largely preventable calamities.

Like the one that befell two-year-old Sincere Smith in Conway, South Carolina, who was relaxing after a heavy meal of chicken and mac and cheese on Christmas day when he spotted an object on the living room table. It was a .38-caliber handgun that his father had bought two weeks before and had left on the table while he went to make a phone call. Sincere picked it up and fired a single shot through his own chest; he died en route to hospital.

Wolf

Church volunteer in Tennessee molests little girl while pastor was covering it up to 'follow biblical guidelines'

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© Raw Story
A support group for clergy sex abuse victims has asked prosecutors in Tennessee to investigate whether a Baptist minister altered his account of sex abuse by a church volunteer to protect himself from civil liability.

The family of a girl who was molested by a member of First Baptist Church of Bemis sued the church last month for negligence after the church allowed Chad Lutrell to volunteer at Vacation Bible School five years ago, when the abuse took place.

The suit, which seeks $2 million in damages, claimed then-pastor Mark McSwain allowed Lutrell to work with children even though he knew of previous allegations of sexual misconduct.

According to the suit, Lutrell had been seen at church kissing girls between the ages of 6 and 10 on the mouth, and three adult women said he had stalked, threatened, and harassed them.

Comment: Dr. Salter exposed the reality of sexual predators in Predators: Pedophiles, Rapists, and Other Sex Offenders, Who They Are, How They Operate, and How We Can Protect Ourselves and Our Children. It's a must read for learning how they operate, why so few are caught and how to protect yourself and your children.

See also:
SOTT Talk Radio: Predators Among Us - Interview With Dr. Anna Salter