Society's ChildS


Megaphone

Torture a 'mortal sin', should be abolished, says Pope Francis


AP
Sun, 22 Jun 2014 15:26 UTC
Pope Francis
© AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino
Pope Francis waves to faithful during the Angelus prayer he delivered from the window of his studio overlooking St. Peter’s square at the Vatican, Sunday, June 22, 2014. Pope Francis is urging Christians to band together to work for the abolishment of every form of torture, condemning the practice as grave sin.
Pope Francis is urging Christians to work together to abolish every form of torture, condemning the practice as a grave sin.

Francis told the public in St. Peter's Square Sunday he wanted to reiterate his "firm condemnation of every kind of torture." He sought united efforts to work for torture's end and to support victims and their families.

Francis said it was a "mortal sin, a very grave sin, to torture people" and noted that Thursday marks the United Nation's day for torture victims.

Torture was a powerful tool of the military regime ruling his native Argentina from 1976 till 1983. The local church hierarchy then openly sided with the junta.

Francis has been credited with saving lives of political dissidents while a Jesuit priest in Argentina.
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Quenelle

Thousands march against austerity in London


RT
Sat, 21 Jun 2014 03:43 UTC
london austerity protest
© Twitter/@daisyayliffeNo more austerity!
Thousands of protesters hit streets in London in a "no more austerity" march, which demanded an alternative to the "greed and selfishness" of the Con-Dem coalition.

The rally, which also includes a festival, was called by The People's Assembly Against Austerity, an broad coalition of anti-government groups that embraces trade unions and other campaigners. RT's Sara Firth reported from the scene that thousands came to join.

"Living standards continue to drop, forcing millions into poverty, yet the politicians remain addicted to austerity," the rally's said.

Comment: The compete apathy of the British people seems to be lifting very slowly, as they realise just how badly they are being deceived by their corporate oligarchs. Will it be enough to make a difference? Britons living in poverty more than doubled in past 30 years, as wealth gap soared

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Phoenix

A deliberate sabotage or a message from the Universe? Ukraine gas pipeline blast unexplained


HazardEx
Thu, 19 Jun 2014 14:56 UTC
Image
An explosion ripped through a natural gas pipeline in the Poltava region of central Ukraine on June 17 sending a column of fire 200 metres into the air. Ukraine's state pipeline operator Ukrtransgaz said the fire from the explosion was extinguished in less than two hours. Supplies to Europe were not affected as the gas flow was temporarily shifted to a parallel pipeline.

The incident happened one day after Russia said it was cutting off gas supplies to Ukraine over a payment dispute. Ukraine is fighting an insurrection in its eastern and southern provinces that it says is being supported and encouraged by Moscow.

Ukraine's Interior Ministry said it was investigating a number of possible causes, including terrorism.

The pipeline, which was completed in 1983, has capacity for 32 billion cubic meters a year and is one of two major gas pipelines that run through Ukraine to Western Europe from Russia. At the site of the blast the pipeline was six metres underground.
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Books

City shuts down Kansas boy's little free library

Haley Harrison
The Rutherford Institute
Fri, 20 Jun 2014 15:13 UTC
Spencer Library
© KMBC-TV, Kansas
Leawood - A 9-year-old Leawood boy is doing his part to promote reading, but he's hit a roadblock.

Leawood city leaders have told Spencer Collins that he has to stop sharing books with his neighbors.

Collins had to take down his little free library, essentially a communal bookshelf, on Wednesday. The motto of the sharing center had been "take a book, leave a book," but Collins learned there's a lot less give and take in city government.

Collins loves reading. He doesn't just dive into a book -- he swims through its pages.

"It's kind of like I'm in a whole other world and I like that," he said. "I like adventure stories because I'm in the adventure and it's fun."

When he tried to share his love for books, it started a surprisingly frustrating adventure.
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Bizarro Earth

7,500 gallons of oil spills in Colorado river

Ryan Maye Handy
Fort Collins Coloradoan
Fri, 20 Jun 2014 23:59 UTC
Poudre River
© Erin Hull, APView of a field flooded as the Poudre River spills over its banks and into Eastman Park on May 25, 2014, in Windsor, Colo.
Fort Collins -- A storage tank damaged by recent flooding has dumped 7,500 gallons of crude oil into the Poudre River near Windsor, the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC) reported late Friday afternoon.

"At this time we know of no drinking water intakes affected by this spill. The release is not ongoing," COGCC spokesman Todd Hartman said

The oil has stained vegetation as far as a quarter of mile away from the damaged tank, Hartman said.

The tank's operator, Noble Energy, discovered the spill Tuesday afternoon and later reported it to the COGCC, the state's regulatory agency for the oil and gas industry. Recent high river flows undercut the bank where the storage tank was sitting, causing the tank to drop and breaking a valve. About 178 barrels of oil dumped into the river.

The well near the tank has been shut in, and a second tank in the area appears to be unaffected, Hartman said in a news release.

COGCC and water quality experts from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment were at the scene of the tank spill, where clean-up efforts were underway Friday. Clean-up crews are working to absorb the spilled oil and a vac-truck is removing oil-filled standing water from a low-lying area around the tank.
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Stop

South Texas funeral home paid by county to handle remains of immigrants suspected of dumping them in mass graves


RT.com
Sat, 21 Jun 2014 02:50 UTC
mass graves immigrants south texas
© University of Indianapolis / Guy Housewright
Anthropologists uncovered a series of mass graves filled with the human remains of immigrants stuffed into shopping and garbage bags in a county-owned section of a cemetery in South Texas. Now, a local politician is calling for an inquiry.

The group of anthropology researchers is made of professors and students from the University of Indianapolis and Baylor University, who are working on the Reuniting Families project. The multi-year project seeks to identify the bodies of the hundreds of undocumented immigrants who died (usually from exposure in the 100-degree-plus heat) while crossing the Texas-Mexico border over the last few years. They resumed work two weeks ago, exhuming 52 plots in a Brooks County-owned section of the Sacred Heart Burial Park in Falfurrias.

In those plots, they found the remains of multiple people instead of just one.

In one burial plot, bones of three bodies were inside one body bag. In another instance, there were at least five people in body bags and smaller plastic bags were piled on top of each other, Baylor University anthropologist Lori Baker said to the Corpus Christi Caller-Times. Skulls were found in biohazard bags - like the red plastic bags in receptacles at doctors' offices - placed between coffins.
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Question

America goes wild for ice cold mugshot of Crips member

Channing Joseph
Huffington Post
Fri, 20 Jun 2014 11:32 UTC
Image
Jeremy Meeks - A blank, psychopathic stare is now perceived as sexy
A handsome mug shot of a Northern California man arrested on felony weapons charges has gone viral on social media, attracting more than 33,000 "likes" and drawing comments praising his high cheek bones, chiseled face and striking blue eyes.

Jeremy Meeks, 30, a convicted felon, was arrested Wednesday on five weapons charges and one gang charge, according to Officer Joseph Silva, a spokesman for the Stockton Police Department.

Silva declined to say what Meeks was previously convicted of, saying the department does not routinely release information about a suspect's criminal history.

No previous arrest photo has garnered so much positive attention since the department set up the Facebook page in March 2012, Silva told The Associated Press.

"I have not seen that many likes for a photo before," he said.

By late Thursday, Meeks' arrest photo had garnered more than 33,000 "likes," and 10,400 comments, and had been shared more than 3,300 times. Other postings on the site generally receive hundreds of "likes."

Meeks was one of four men taken into custody during Operation Ceasefire, a multiagency mission to curb a recent increase in shootings and robberies in the Weston Ranch area of Stockton, a Northern California city of about 300,000 nestled amid the network of waterways that form the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.
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Alarm Clock

60 cases of female genital mutilation discovered in Swedish school


RT
Fri, 20 Jun 2014 15:19 UTC
genital mutilation
© Reuters/Stringer
Up to 60 cases of genital mutilation among elementary school girls have been discovered in Norrköping in eastern Sweden since March, local media reported. Among the cases, 28 girls were subjected to the most severe form of genital mutilation.

The abuse was discovered by health services in a Norrköping school in eastern Sweden, according to a report in local newspaper Norrköpings Tidningar.

Half of the 60 cases were detected in the same year in elementary school. Twenty-eight of these girls were subjected to the most severe form of genital mutilation, when all external genitalia is removed and the genital area is sewn together, with a small opening for urinating left.

Girls exhibiting severe symptoms were the easiest to detect, Petra Blom Andersson, coordinator of the Central Student Health Service, told Norrköpings Tidningar. She added that recurring headaches and severe menstrual cramps were important signals.

"One girl had such severe menstrual pain that she had to be transported from the school by ambulance to the Women's Clinic," Andersson said.

The girls subjected to FMG in Norrköping have been referred to the Youth Health Service, or a women's clinic if they are slightly older, she said.

FGM has no health benefits, while complications can include severe pain, shock, bleeding, tetanus, sepsis, urine retention, recurrent bladder and urinary tract infections, as well as infertility, increased risk of childbirth complications and newborn deaths and other problems, according to the World Health Organization.

The practice has been illegal in Sweden since 1982 and can be punished with up to four years in prison.
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Stormtrooper

Baltimore police officer charged after slitting restrained dog's throat


RT
Sat, 21 Jun 2014 00:16 UTC
dog
© facebook
A Baltimore police officer is facing felony animal cruelty charges for slitting the throat of a restrained dog, and another has been suspended for helping. Officer Jeffrey Bolger also threatened to gut the dog, witnesses said.

"I'm going to [f--king] gut this thing," witnesses heard Bolger say as he got out of the police vehicle, according to the charging document.

The dog, a 7-year-old shar-pei named Nala, had escaped from owner Sarah Gossard's yard on Saturday through an open gate after Gossard had let her out. Nearby resident Sandy Fleischer found Nala and tried to check the dog's tags, but Nala nipped her, causing a superficial wound.

"The dog was more scared of not knowing where it was and being thirsty and disoriented. The dog bit me out of fear because I tried to touch it, which was my fault," Fleischer told told WBAL-TV. The dog was not aggressive, she added.

Fleischer then called police, and officers from the Southeastern District responded and corralled the dog in an empty lot. The officers captured Nala with a long dog-control pole.

Then Bolger pulled out a knife and slit Nala's throat as Officer Thomas Schmidt held her down.

But even before officers killed Nala, they were being cruel, Fleischer said.

"One police officer said, 'Let's get the noose on the dog,' and you could see the police officer twisting and hurting the dog, bringing it to the ground to the point where the dog's face is on the ground. You could hear the dog screaming and crying in pain," she said. "I did see one officer that had been extremely aggressive that did have his knee into her chest that was tightening the noose. It seemed (they were doing it) relentlessly and unnecessarily."

Police agreed the killing was unnecessary, as the dog was contained.
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Alarm Clock

Texas day care investigated for duct taping restless children to sleeping mats

Erin Mizraki
ABC
Fri, 20 Jun 2014 18:05 UTC
Lorrie Almquist
© Courtesy of Lorrie Almquist
A Texas day care center is under fire after a staffer allegedly duct taped two children to their sleeping mats when they would not go to sleep during nap time.

Lorrie Almquist, of Cresson, Texas, said she was shocked when she received a call Wednesday from the owner of Heart2Heart Montessori Academy in Parker County and learned that her 3-year-old son and another boy had been duct taped to their sleeping mats.

Photos of a different boy wrapped in a blanket and bound to his sleeping pad by duct tape around the legs and chest had been circling among concerned parents Tuesday afternoon, Almquist said. The photos, which did not show the boy's face, had been snapped by an employee at the school who quit her job shortly after, she said.

Though the boy in the photo was not Almquist's son, she received a call a day later from the day care's owner, Pam Decker, who Almquist said took responsibility for the incident, informing the mother that Almquist's son had also been taped down.

"I felt violated and I was irate," Almquist told ABC News today. "I couldn't find any words to say to her. I was so hurt and saddened to think that my child had to go through that."

Almquist said Decker had been complaining for weeks about her son not sleeping during nap time, and had even requested that Almquist buy a weighted blanket to help keep her son down during nap time.
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