Society's ChildS


Stock Down

Reports confirm austerity leads to deepening recession in Europe

Stefan Steinberg
World Socialist Web Site
Fri, 19 Jul 2013 12:42 UTC
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A series of new reports confirm that the policy of austerity dictated by the troika - the European Commission, European Central Bank, International Monetary Fund - after the financial crisis of 2008 is plunging Europe ever deeper into recession.

On Tuesday the European Union's statistics agency issued a report stating that in the month of May, imports to and exports from the euro zone both fell over 2 percent. Euro zone exports to the rest of the world fell by 2.3 percent in May after a sharp decline the previous month.

The decline in both imports and exports reflects the contraction of the European economy as a whole. After years of austerity, social spending cuts and growing mass unemployment, the broad mass of European consumers can no longer afford many commodities they took for granted only a few years ago.
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Crusader

Texas passes one of toughest anti-abortion laws in U.S.

Tom Dart
Guardian
Sat, 13 Jul 2013 10:49 UTC
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© Tamir Kalifa/APAbortion rights advocates filled the rotunda of the Texas state capitor as the senate prepared to vote.
Texas governor Rick Perry to sign off law that bans abortions after 20 weeks after senate approves bill in late-night vote

Texas politicians have given final approval to one of the US's toughest anti-abortion bills, but opponents are set to challenge the legisation in federal court.

More than a thousand pro-choice and anti-abortion demonstrators packed the state capitol in Austin late on Friday night as senators voted on legislation that has made Texas the focus of nationwide abortion-rights activism.

The senate passed House Bill 2 by 19 votes to 11 just before midnight local time. Texas governor Rick Perry is now due to sign it off.

Texas is one of several states that have sought to restrict access to abortions this year, but it has attracted the most attention due to the publicity surrounding Democratic state senator Wendy Davis's bid to block the bill with an almost 11-hour filibuster.

"The key will be what the courts will do," Sylvia Garcia, a Democratic senator for Houston and a former judge, said before the vote. "I think the Texas proposal is on a path to litigation, to being held unconstitutional. We'll have to wait for the courts to ultimately decide."
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Arrow Up

New Zealand food prices jump 2.1pc in June

Stephen Gillam
New Zealand Herald
Thu, 11 Jul 2013 10:30 UTC
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© NZ HeraldFood prices rose 2.1 per cent in June - the biggest monthly jump since GST went up to 15pc in October 2010.
Fruit and vegetable prices have spearheaded a 2.1 per cent rise in food prices for June 2013, a 50 per cent increase on June 2012 and 2011, according to Statistics New Zealand's latest Food Price Index.

This is the biggest monthly gain since GST was lifted to 15 percent in October 2010.

Fruit and vegetable prices rose 13 per cent, compared with 9 per cent in June last year.

Some of the big risers include tomatoes - up 99 per cent, nectarines up 64 per cent, lettuce up 55 per cent and avocadoes up 33 per cent.

Meat, poultry and fish prices increased by 1.3 per cent against the previous month, influenced by chicken rising 12 per cent - largely due to less discounting, said Stats NZ.
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Handcuffs

Jailed journalist Barrett Brown faces 105 years for reporting on hacked private intelligence firms


Demoracy Now
Thu, 11 Jul 2013 10:15 UTC

Journalist Barrett Brown spent his 300th day behind bars this week on a range of charges filed after he used information obtained by the hacker group Anonymous to report on the operations of private intelligence firms. Brown faces 17 charges ranging from threatening an FBI agent to credit card fraud for posting a link online to a document that contained stolen credit card data. But according to his supporters, Brown is being unfairly targeted for daring to investigate the highly secretive world of private intelligence and military contractors. Using information Anonymous took from the firm HBGary Federal, Brown helped discover a secret plan to tarnish the reputations of WikiLeaks and journalist Glenn Greenwald of The Guardian. Brown similarly analyzed and wrote about the millions of internal company emails from Stratfor Global Intelligence that were leaked in 2011.

We speak to Peter Ludlow, professor of philosophy at Northwestern University, whose article "The Strange Case of Barrett Brown" recently appeared in The Nation. "Considering that the person who carried out the actual Stratfor hack had several priors and is facing a maximum of 10 years, the inescapable conclusion is that the problem is not with the hack itself but with Brown's journalism," Ludlow argues. He adds that the case against Brown could suggest criminality "to even link to something or share a link with someone."
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Eye 2

Abu Ghraibs stateside: Texas sheriff's jail ran 'Rape Camp' for years, female inmates violated hundreds of times

Hunter Stuart
Huffington Post
Tue, 18 Jun 2013 07:22 UTC
A recently filed lawsuit alleges that a Texas sheriff's office ran a "rape camp" at a county jail, where numerous male guards repeatedly raped and humiliated female inmates over an extended period of time.

Two women who were inmates at the jail, which is attached to the county's quaint courthouse building, are now suing Live Oak County and guards Vincent Aguilar, Jaime Smith and Israel Charles Jr.

The lawsuit says the three guards forced the women to shave their vaginas in front of them, to perform oral sex on each other and on the guards and sometimes "to conceal [the guards'] ejaculate by way of ingestion," the court documents state. The guards would also pin the women against the wall while verbally berating them, groping them and digitally raping them, the suit says.

The documents also say the guards told one plaintiff that she "belong[ed] to [them]" and was their "sex slave or whatever they wanted her to be."

During any given attack, there were allegedly anywhere from one to three other guards who watched the crimes as they were committed.

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From left to right: Israel Charles Jr., Vince Aguilar, Jaime Smith.
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Music

Bruce Springsteen dedicates song to Trayvon Martin during Ireland concert

Noel Sheppard
NewsBusters
Wed, 17 Jul 2013 07:02 UTC
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As NewsBusters previously reported, Stevie Wonder on Monday told a Quebec City concert audience that he was boycotting Florida and other states with "Stand Your Ground" laws as a result of the George Zimmerman verdict.

Apparently not to be outdone, Bruce Springsteen on Tuesday dedicated a song to Trayvon Martin during a concert in Limerick, Ireland.
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Stormtrooper

Cops shoot innocent man in bed, no charges filed


REALfarmacy.com
Thu, 11 Jul 2013 13:26 UTC
cops shoot man in bed
© King 5 News
Dustin Theoharis was asleep in his bed when a Department of Corrections officer, and King County Sherriff's deputy rushed into his house, busted into his bedroom and began to unload their pistols on this unarmed man.

It is estimated that the two officers fired over 20 rounds of which 16 landed in Mr. Theoharis. According to Theoharis's attorney, Erik Heipt, "Theoharis suffered "a broken shoulder, 2 broken arms, broken legs, he had a compression fracture to his spine, damage to his liver and spleen."

The kicker here is that Theoharis was not the guy the police were after. According to King 5 news Seattle, The King County Sheriff's deputy and Washington Department of Corrections officer who shot him were at the house to arrest a man who'd violated his parole. But in a search of the house after the shooting, they surprised Theoharis in the basement room he was renting.

Cole Harrison, who was at the house, described it this way: "They (the officers) rushed into that room like they were going to get somebody. I mean they rushed down there and then all of a sudden. Boom, boom, boom, boom."

According to a review requested by Charles Gaither, a civilian watchdog of the Sheriff's Office, which was conducted by a police accountability expert, Merrick Bobb, the officers refused to be interviewed on the scene and no internal investigation was ordered. In fact Deputy Aaron Thompson didn't even issue a statement until a month later.
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Yoda

President Jimmy Carter: Lambasts U.S. intel over NSA spying, says America has no functioning democracy


RT.com
Thu, 18 Jul 2013 11:15 UTC
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© Mario Tama/Getty Images/AFPFormer U.S. President Jimmy Carter
Former US President Jimmy Carter lambasted US intelligence methods as undemocratic and described Edward Snowden's NSA leak as "beneficial" for the country.

Carter lashed out at the US political system when the issue of the previously top-secret NSA surveillance program was touched upon at the Atlantic Bridge meeting on Tuesday in Atlanta, Georgia.

"America has no functioning democracy at this moment," Carter said, according to Der Spiegel.

He also believes the spying-scandal is undermining democracy around the world, as people become increasingly suspicious of US internet platforms, such as Google and Facebook. While such mediums have normally been associated with freedom of speech and have recently become a major driving force behind emerging democratic movements, fallout from the NSA spying scandal has dented their credibility.
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Hiliter

Journalists are supposed to shine a light on secret government powers

Mike Masnick
techdirt
Mon, 24 Jun 2013 11:46 UTC
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from the say-that-again dept

It's been quite incredible to see defenders of the surveillance state attack not just Edward Snowden for leaking information about the NSA's surveillance efforts, but also go after the reporters who broke the various stories concerning what he leaked. While many of the attacks have been focused on Glenn Greenwald, the other journalist who has access to Snowden is the Washington Post's Bart Gellman, and apparently it's his turn to be attacked for doing a good job in reporting. The attacker, in this case, is Stewart Baker, the former Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security and former General Counsel for the NSA. He wrote an incredible attack on Gellman, arguing that he has somehow crossed the despicable line from "journalist" to "advocate" in his reporting on Snowden's leaks.
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Bad Guys

Brazil world's seventh most violent country: 1.1 million murdered in 30 years


Fox News
Thu, 18 Jul 2013 00:00 UTC
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© AFP/FilePeople demonstrate against violence at Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro on October 24, 2009. More than one million people were murdered in Brazil between 1980 and 2011, making it the world's seventh most violent country, a survey showed Thursday.
More than one million people were murdered in Brazil between 1980 and 2011, making it the world's seventh most violent country, a survey showed Thursday.

During the period, homicides soared 132 percent to claim 1,145,208 lives, from a rate of 11.5 murders for 100,000 inhabitants in 1980 to 27 per 100,000 in 2011, according to the Map of Violence report,

Among those aged between 14 and 25, homicides skyrocketed 326 percent to reach 53 per 100,000 inhabitants, said the study published by the Latin American Studies Center (Cebela).

In 2011, Brazil, now home to 194 million people, recorded 51,198 homicides, ranked seventh among the world's most violent nations after El Salvador, the US Virgin Islands, Trinidad and Tobago, Venezuela, Colombia and Guatemala.

From 2007, the study highlighted a resumption of a surge in violence after a drop in the previous decade, attributed mainly to public disarmament policies.

The survey showed that violence in Brazil, once concentrated in major metropolitan areas such as Sao Paulo and Rio, has spread nationwide over the past 10 years to the hinterland of most states, especially in the north, a trend that coincides with the expansion of new economic hubs.

Comment: Brazil is also a country of extreme poverty and corruption, which accounts for the violence, and it is the reason its citizens have had enough and are taking to the streets:
Revolution? Brazilian protests swells to millions: government calls emergency meeting
'People Revolution' spreads to Brazil: Thousands take to streets in anti-government protests

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