Society's ChildS


Stock Down

Ukraine's currency in free-fall after central bank stops propping it up


RT
Thu, 05 Feb 2015 03:41 UTC
hryvna, ukraine currency
© Reuters / Gleb GaranichBanknotes of Ukrainian hryvna
The hryvnia lost 34 percent against the US dollar after the head of the central bank signaled it can no longer support the currency with regular interventions and will allow greater fluctuations. The hyrvnia hit a historic low of 24.5 per 1 USD.

"Get used to market volatility," National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) Governor Valery Gontareva told reporters in Kiev on Thursday.
Happening to Ukrainian #Hryvnia right now while John Kerry is arriving in Kiev for talks. The market is panicking pic.twitter.com/P8s40O3K3t
- Yury Barmin (@yurybarmin) February 5, 2015
With foreign exchange reserves at only $7.5 billion, the central bank "is changing its approach to monetary policy, while strengthening its rigidity," according to a statement published Thursday.
Ukrainian Central Bank cancels indicative Hryvna rate. Real Hryvna rate differed from indicative by 30%. Panic mood in markets - Gontareva
- *Russian Market (@russian_market) February 5, 2015
After the policy shift announcement, Ukraine's hryvnia fell to 24.5 against the dollar and 28.092 against the euro.

Comment: That IMF aid fund won't come without strings attached. Everyone knows the situation in Ukraine is the result of Western meddling. Now they're bleeding cash in aid while Russia sits back and smiles.

Related:

Atrocities in Ukraine: Shedding light on excusing ignorance

SOTT Exclusive: Courageous Ukrainian women speak out

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Chart Bar

Just how dangerous is terrorism, really?


Washington's Blog
Wed, 04 Feb 2015 00:36 UTC
terrorism statistics
The terror threat is greatly exaggerated. After all, the type of counter-terror experts who frequently appear on the mainstream news are motivated to hype the terror threat, because it drums up business for them.

The same is true for government employees. As former FBI assistant director Thomas Fuentes put it last week:
If you're submitting budget proposals for a law enforcement agency, for an intelligence agency, you're not going to submit the proposal that "We won the war on terror and everything's great," cuz the first thing that's gonna happen is your budget's gonna be cut in half.

You know, it's my opposite of Jesse Jackson's "Keep Hope Alive" - it's "Keep Fear Alive." Keep it alive.
Fearmongering also serves political goals. For example, FBI agents and CIA intelligence officials, a top constitutional and military law expert, Time magazine, the Washington Post and others have all said that U.S. government officials "were trying to create an atmosphere of fear in which the American people would give them more power". Indeed, the former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge admitted that he was pressured to raise terror alerts to help Bush win reelection. Former U.S. National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski - also a top foreign policy advisor to President Obama - told the Senate that the war on terror is a "a mythical historical narrative".

Comment: Creating an atmosphere of terror in order to give those in power more power... Now, who does that remind you of?

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Light Saber

Student government at University of California passes vote to boycott Israel


Press TV
Wed, 04 Feb 2015 09:35 UTC
Image
© Via twitter@ela_m
Pro-Palestinian students at the University of California, Davis, have celebrated after a student government vote to boycott Israel was passed overwhelmingly at the US school.

The student government resolution to boycott Israel passed 8-2 last week, which formally recommends the university to divest from US companies that conduct business with Israel, the Washington Times reported on Tuesday.

Following the vote, which was championed by the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), student activists waved Palestinian flags and celebrated as they left the meeting room.

The resolution is part of a larger movement, known as the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, to increase economic and political pressure on Israel.

The BDS movement also seeks to end the Israeli occupation and colonization of Palestinian lands and respect the right of return of Palestinian refugees.

The boycott campaign against Israel began in July 2005 by 171 Palestinian organizations, which calls for "various forms of boycott against Israel until it meets its obligations under international law."

In 2013, two US academic groups -- the American Studies Association and the Association for Asian American Studies -- supported the boycott.

During the recent Israel war against the Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip, Israeli warplanes targeted a number of schools and hospitals in defiance of the Geneva conventions that ban such attacks.

Comment: Good for them!

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Quenelle - Golden

More than 6,000 Athenians in the first pro-govt rally in recent years - No police, no baricades


Greek Reporter
Thu, 05 Feb 2015 22:05 UTC
syntagma pro-government demo
In Athens tonight, Feb. 5 2015
A demonstration largely different from those Athens has seen in recent years took place today in downtown Athens' Syntagma Square. The rally was called for 6.00 pm and was organized through social media. It was the first pro-government demonstration organized in Greece in recent years. Four years ago, in summer 2011 the Spanish-inspired movement of the "Indignados" attracted thousands of protestors rallying against austerity measures in the same square.

Once again, the protestors' request was the abolition of the austerity policies imposed upon Greece. The crowds gathered in front of the Greek Parliament in support of the new anti-austerity SYRIZA-led government's efforts to renegotiate the country's international debt. The chants were mostly against German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, who earlier today met with his Greek counterpart in Berlin. Apparently, the two Ministers did not come to an agreement regarding the Greek bailout program's future.

On the opposite, Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, emerging lately as Greece's new "super star," was the protestor's favorite along with Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras.
Syntagma people for the government
"No more blackmails" chanted the crowds
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Snakes in Suits

NBC anchor Brian Williams admits he lied about being in a downed helicopter in Iraq

Michael Krieger
Liberty Blitzkrieg
Wed, 04 Feb 2015 21:35 UTC
Image
Brian Williams
NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams admitted Wednesday he was not aboard a helicopter hit and forced down by RPG fire during the invasion of Iraq in 2003, a false claim that has been repeated by the network for years.

The admission came after crew members on the 159th Aviation Regiment's Chinook that was hit by two rockets and small arms fire told Stars and Stripes that the NBC anchor was nowhere near that aircraft or two other Chinooks flying in the formation that took fire. Williams arrived in the area about an hour later on another helicopter after the other three had made an emergency landing, the crew members said. - From Stars and Stripes article: NBC's Brian Williams Recants Iraq Story After Soldiers Protest


Comment: So Brian Williams only came clean when the people who were really there blew his lie up and he had no choice. Not exactly a remorseful admission on his part. One would imagine that, had the crew members not done that, he would still be going around parading his heroism instead of offering up a half-hearted admission of lying. This isn't just a case of misremembering, that is simply an excuse that sounds better than the truth, which is that it would enhance his career prospects and lift up his public profile.


Just in case you still harbor any doubt that mainstream media is nothing but a pathetic amalgamation of useless liars and propagandists...

Enter NBC's star reporter Brian Williams. A man apparently so vain and attention starved that he actually invented a war story from 2003 to make himself look tougher. Then he continued to tell the false narrative until U.S. soldiers called him out on it.

What a complete and total embarrassment.
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Eye 2

Japanese man drugs & rapes over 100 women in fake clinical trial


RT
Wed, 04 Feb 2015 19:14 UTC
Doctor
© Reuters/Kevin Lamarque
A Japanese man has been arrested for allegedly drugging and raping over 100 women by pretending to be running a clinical trial, local police and media reported on Tuesday. The suspect reportedly filmed the assaults and sold the footage as porn online.

The fake medical study involved "measuring blood pressure during sleep," AFP quoted the Japanese investigators as saying. The female victims came across the study through advertisements and agreed to willingly participate in what they believed to be research.

What the victims did not know, is that 54-year-old Hideyuki Noguchi was allegedly using sedatives that knocked the women unconscious in order to rape them. The perpetrator took victims to various hotels and resorts to conduct the trials and filmed each individual assault, according to police. Assaults took place over a two-year period, until November 2013.
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Camcorder

Insane dash cam video captures plane crash in Taipei, Taiwan


RT
Wed, 04 Feb 2015 13:26 UTC
plane crash taipei
© TVBS Taiwan, Agence France-Presse/Getty Images.Video from a driver’s dashboard camera captured the moment a Taiwanese TransAsia Airways plane with 58 people on board crashed into a Taipei river.
The moment when a regional TransAsia passenger flight crash-landed into a river was caught on dash-camera. One of plane's wings cut through a highway railing mere meters from the filming vehicle.
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Bandaid

Norway MPs want to criminalize begging, aiding homeless with fines, imprisonment


RT
Wed, 04 Feb 2015 21:31 UTC
Image
© Reuters/Yannis Behrakis
Norwegian lawmakers are working on a bill to introduce a national ban on begging in the streets and even want to extend it by proposing jail for helping the homeless with money, food or shelter.

According to the draft of the law, begging in the streets will be punishable with fines and even imprisonment for up to one year. This was the original plan when the draft first emerged in June.

After further amendments, the same punishment may now hold true for those who give beggars money or offer any help, local media report. The bill was sent for more consultations until February, 15.

Plans to fight begging appeared last year after the polls showed that more than 60 percent of the population said it should be considered a crime. The government report stated there were up to 1,000 beggars in the country, which has a population of five million, and the majority of them were foreigners who "work" in groups.

Last year local councils got the right to ban begging in areas under their control but the new law is to be put into effect in the whole country.

The authors of the law also state it is necessary to punish people aiding beggars, as the police need the authority to prosecute those running begging networks as an organized business.


Comment: Those begging networks and other scams are few and far between compared to the number of people without food or shelter.


Comment: Collectively, governments around the world are asking people to pretend these homeless human beings don't exist! There is something seriously wrong with this type of thinking - it's completely inhumane. It is in human nature (for some) to want to help another who is suffering. Why has it become criminal to help another human being?

The Greatest Epidemic Sickness Known to Humanity

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Gear

Researchers link 35% rise in suicides to Greek austerity measures


RT
Wed, 04 Feb 2015 19:27 UTC
greek food line
© Reuters/Marko Djurica
The harsh austerity measures imposed on Greece by its EU creditors led to the major spike in suicides in the country during the peak of its crisis in 2011 and 2012, a survey by the UK's leading medical magazine said.

"The introduction of austerity measures [in Greece] in June 2011 marked the start of a significant, sharp, and sustained increase in suicides, to reach a peak in 2012," the report by BMJ Open said.

The scientists, who analyzed data gathered by the Hellenic Statistical Authority from over the past 30 years, said that a total of 11,505 Greeks took their own lives - 9,079 men and 2,426 women - from 1983 to 2012.

The number of total suicides rose by over 35 per cent in June 2011 when the austerity measures were introduced, leading to violent protests and strikes, the research said. The number of people taking their lives was rising until the end of the year and continued into 2012, it added.

Comment: See also:

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Heart - Black

Heartbreaking stories: Letter from a Ukrainian girl


Global Research News
Wed, 04 Feb 2015 00:06 UTC
euromaiden right sektor
© Mstyslav Chernov
GR Editor's Note: The following letter by a young Ukrainian girl was brought to our attention. The letter translated from Russian depicts the drama of young girl, It describes the context of oppression prevailing in Ukraine's capital directed against those who opposed the Maidan.

Unfortunately, I had to close all posts in my VK(VKontakte) [Ed. note: VK is a version of Facebook] about Maidan (they aren't erased, but now are visible only to me) because after the Maidan "victory" in Kiev the real nightmare began. About that, people prefer not to speak because they are very much afraid. There are [Right Sector] militants everywhere.

My co-worker was beat in front of the entrance to her apartment for writing anti-maidan posts in her VK page. How did they find her? No one knows. She is in intensive care and at the first mention of that event, you can't appease her tears.

At school the other day, my neighbor's boy called his parents at the break using a mobile phone and spoke with them in Russian. His schoolmates took away his phone and broke it. They broke his bag, tore all his textbooks and note-books, and then beat him up. They demanded he speak only Ukrainian or "for the rest of his life be afraid because they will find and will cripple him". This is a boy in 7th grade.

From time to time on the streets it is possible to see this picture; As a person is approaching a group of people, the group asks questions: "Were you on Maidan? Do you support Maidan? " If both answers are "no" the group cruelly beats them and kicks them.

Comment: The ponerization of Ukraine appears complete. Those who have resisted the pathological virus need all the support they can get, even from afar. Spreading the truth about Ukraine's reality is one way to help.

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