Society's ChildS


Stock Down

Sanction backfire: Finland Valio dairy closes factory due to Russian embargo

cows
© Andrew Yates / Reuters
One of Finland's biggest dairy companies, Valio, has announced it is shutting down a facility in the city of Tampere due to losses as a result of Moscow's food embargo against the EU.

According to the company, it started redundancy talks with the current 50 staff at the Tampere plant which once employed about 165 people. The dairy was established in 1962 and processed an average of 74 million kilograms of raw milk per year, collected from 490 farms around the facility.

Valio said it has lost significant volume of milk sales over the past three years. In 2015 it moved production of milk from Tampere to other facilities, and more than 70 workers lost their jobs. Tampere then continued to produce special types of milk and a type of soft cheese.

Comment:
bike meme
"Damn Russians!"



Eye 1

Houston math tutor facing 20 years in prison for sexting with 17-year-old student

Aldo Leiva
© Harris County Sheriff's Office
The age of consent for sex does not apply to sexting, as 51-year-old Aldo Leiva, a Houston math tutor, learned the hard way after his affair with a 17-year-old student was exposed to law enforcement - along with the racy pictures she had sent him.

Although the age of consent in Texas is 17, it is still considered child pornography to be in possession of nude pictures of anyone under 18.

As a result, Leiva is now facing 20 years in prison and permanent placement on the sex offender registry because the mother of a student with whom he was having a relationship discovered lewd text messages and photographs sent to him by her daughter and reported him to school personnel at the Houston Independent School District Police Department.

Although Leiva was not a teacher at the school that the teen attended, he was a participant in its tutoring fellowship program, which is where he met her.

Ambulance

Unknown drug kills 2 young people at Florida music festival, and sends 57 others to the hospital

music festival
© Vivek Prakash / Reuters
An undetected drug allegedly passed around at a music festival in Tampa, Florida killed two young people and sickened 57 others, with one attendee describing the concert as "really uncontrolled." Meanwhile, police are looking into the causes of death.

So far, Florida residents Katie Bermudez of Kissimmee, and Alex Haynes of Melbourne are the only two confirmed deaths. Both were rushed from the Sunset Music Festival in Tampa to a hospital over the weekend.

Haynes, 22, was hospitalized on Saturday, the first day of the festival, and was pronounced dead on Sunday. Bermudez, 21, died on Monday, the day after she was hospitalized, Tampa Police spokesman Steve Hegarty said.

"The social worker said, 'Your daughter Katie is on a ventilator. You need to get to the hospital,'" Nancy Bermudez told Fox affiliate WTVT, recalling a 3am phone call from St. Joseph's Hospital.

Bermudez's symptoms included high fever and brain swelling, but doctors couldn't find a way to save her.

"We don't know [what happened]... They have an autopsy going on," her mother Nancy said. "The hospital didn't know; they were bewildered with how to treat this."

Red Flag

Cocaine use in London highest in Europe for 2nd year running, according to sewage analysis

cocaine
© US DEA / Reuters
Londoners' cocaine use is the highest in Europe for the second year in a row, an analysis of the city's sewage by the EU's drug monitoring agency has revealed.

The research, which examined wastewater samples in more than 60 European cities, showed that average daily concentration of cocaine in London's wastewater was 909mg per 1,000 people last year - up from 737mg in 2014.


Heart - Black

New report says 11,700 slaves are trapped in modern Britain's 'shadow economy'

prostitute
© Reuters
Slavery is rampant in modern Britain, with an estimated 11,700 people in enforced servitude, according to a new report.

While The Global Slavery Index applauded the UK for having "led the world" with its Modern Slavery Act, the organization highlights the plight of thousands of immigrants who live as forced workers in the shadow economy.

Many are trapped in debt bondage, forced to work in low or semi-skilled jobs, while others are locked in apartments where they produce drugs or work in the sex industry.

Vietnamese children have been discovered held against their will, made to cultivate cannabis in Manchester apartments.

Comment: See also:


Eye 1

Refugees detained in Greece go on hunger strike due to 'unsanitary and filthy' conditions

refugee family hunger strike
© Wassim Omar
Refugees on the Greek island of Chios have told Sputnik they are "desperate and disappointed" following a visit from a representative of the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) who gave them "the same answers".

Wassim Omar and his wife and three children left Syria on 10 March 2016 and traveled to Greece from Turkey where they remain in limbo on the island of Chios.

Following a visit from an UNHCR representative and a translator, Omar told Sputnik that the refugees still have no idea what is going on.

​Omar and a group of parents have been on hunger strike for two weeks to highlight their plight.

Comment: For more on what awaits refugees in Turkey, check out:


V

Belgium at a standstill as anti-austerity protest rocks the country

Belgian protester wearing mask
© AP Photo/ Virginia Mayo
Large parts of Belgium came to a standstill on Tuesday as a series of transport and anti-austerity strikes caused serious disruptions in the country, while also highlighting the political and ethnic divides within Belgium.

Most transport services in Belgium's French-speaking regions were halted as train drivers went on strike for the sixth consecutive day, protesting against a proposed reduction in overtime pay.

The effects were also felt in Brussels, which experienced severe delays to public transport, while some postal workers and rubbish collectors also took industrial action.

Comment: Belgium is sharing the same unrest as France is experiencing.


Handcuffs

Indefinite detention: Abolished IPP law is keeping thousands of UK prisoners incarcerated until they can prove they are not dangerous

UK jail
© Paul Hackett / Reuters
Thousands of UK prisoners are being held with no release date despite serving their minimum sentence, because of an "absurd" law which has since been repealed by Parliament.

In the case of James Ward, now 31, he was initially sentenced to a 10-month term, but is still in prison almost 10 years later due to the now-defunct Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) law.

More than 4,000 inmates, some with mental health problems, are routinely denied release from prison by parole boards because they cannot prove they are not a danger to the public.

Former Justice Minister Ken Clarke branded the situation "ridiculous" because it is impossible for a prisoner to prove he/she is of no danger to the public.

Comment: Yet sex offenders are routinely given a free pass by British judges despite committing "abhorrent" crimes against children and high-ranking pedophiles are protected by the UK government.


Attention

Entrance to apartment building in Siberia collapses, killing 1, injuring 3 with unknown number of others possibly trapped in debris

apartment building collapse siberia
One of the entrance halls has collapsed in a five-story apartment block in Mezhdurechensk, a city in Kemerovo Oblast, Russia.

At least one person has died and three have been injured in the collapse, RIA quoted a source in the Emergency Situations Ministry as saying.

"Four people have been affected, one of them died. Those who are injured are in a moderate condition," the source told RIA.

Stormtrooper

UK 'Prevent' legislation creates environment of extremist anti-extremists

not terrorist
Figures like Jesus, Charles Darwin and Karl Marx would all be banned from British universities today due to the rise of counter-extremism legislation and US-style 'safe spaces,' an Oxford professor has claimed. Oxford Professor of European Studies Timothy Garton Ash told an audience at the Hay literary festival on Monday that pressure groups and the state are carrying out a double-pronged attack on free speech.

As well as Marx, Darwin and Jesus, he warned that philosophers like Rousseau and Hegel would today be banned from campuses. Referring to the UK government-led Prevent scheme, intended to keep extremism out of educational institutions, Garton Ash warned that "securocrats in the Home Office" are imposing bans which would "prevent even non-violent extremists speaking on campus."


"Now non-violent extremists? That's Karl Marx, Rousseau, Charles Darwin, Hegel, and most clearly Jesus Christ, who was definitely a non-violent extremist," the academic said. The Home Office "wouldn't want him preaching on campus," he added.