Society's ChildS


Eye 2

Amnesty calls out Apple and Microsoft for using child labor in Africa


RT
Tue, 19 Jan 2016 21:16 UTC
Coal miners
Artisanal miners work at a cobalt mine-pit in Tulwizembe, Katanga province, Democratic Republic of Congo, November 25, 2015
Amnesty International is calling out major tech manufacturers - including Apple, Microsoft, Sony and others for their alleged links to illegally-sourced cobalt in the volatile Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Children are forced to work in subhuman conditions and under constant threat of violence.

The organization says the mineral used in household appliances the world over is largely sourced from child labor that goes on deep inside hazardous mines and tunnels.

The product of this labor then finds its way into batteries and other components of leading brands - from Microsoft to Apple, and Nokia and Samsung to Vodafone. But tracing the supply chain is a tough task, and it has never been the case that a company would simply reveal it. In certain cases, no one wants to know.

But as Amnesty and Afrewatch found out, there are cases when companies simply lie about sourcing any materials from the DRC at all.
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Heart - Black

After mistakenly admitting to not praying, a 15 year-old boy cut off his own hand as penance (UPDATE)


RT
Sat, 16 Jan 2016 15:52 UTC
muslim prayer
© Athar Hussain / Reuters
A 15-year-old Pakistani boy has cut off his hand as a way of punishing himself for an accidental "blasphemy" he committed. The boy was praised by his parents and gained huge respect from his neighbors for the act, police told AFP.

It turns out the Mohammad Anwar raised his hand by mistake after he misheard a question from an imam, who asked the crowd at a village mosque to give a show of hands of those who had stopped praying.

The boy raised his hand and was immediately accused by the crowd of blasphemy.

After cutting off his hand he put it on a plate and brought it to the cleric, the police chief said.

Comment: When a law is used to shame someone into self-mutilation there's something very wrong with the law and the people that agree to follow it. Honestly, who in their right mind praises a child for cutting off their own hand over such a simple misunderstanding!?

UPDATE: The imam who let this happen has been arrested. Well, it's a start!
Pakistani police have arrested the imam of a mosque in Okara, in the Punjab province, for inciting violence after a 15-year old boy cut off his own hand, believing he had committed blasphemy, a serious crime in the majority Muslim country.

Police filed anti-terrorism charges against the imam and arrested him, local police chief Nosher Ali told Reuters. "Such illiterate imams of mosques should not be allowed to deliver speeches. His arrest is under the National Action Plan that hate speeches inciting violence are no longer allowed in this country," Ali said.


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Attention

Vicious circle: 15yo Lithuanian boy killed by Syrian migrant classmate he bullied


RT
Sun, 17 Jan 2016 22:00 UTC
lithuanian arminas
© Expressen TV / YouTube
A school murder in Sweden, where a Lithuanian pupil was allegedly stabbed by a Syrian migrant classmate, is stoking racial tensions. Families of the victim and the alleged killer are trading accusations, but police are staying silent.

The killing took place on the first day of the new semester, January 11, at the Göinge School in Broby, Skåne County.

A 15-year-old Lithuanian-born boy, Arminas Pileckas, was murdered in the school by a 14-year-old classmate, reportedly from a family of Syrian refugees. Arminas was killed with a single stab into heart inflicted from behind with a kitchen knife, his family says.

The boys had an argument either in November or December that was videoed by classmates, but the tragic climax of the story took place January 11.

Sweden's Aftonbladet newspaper interviewed the father of the alleged killer, who said that his son had been bullied by the victim "for a long time."


Comment: Without a thorough investigation and statements from all involved (teachers, family members, other classmates, including the girl whom Arminas allegedly defended and whom al Haj's son allegedly harassed), it is hard to say definitively what led to this tragic event. But events like this will probably only continue, further exacerbating racial tensions in Europe. With every crime committed by a 'refugee', the false image of all refugees being criminals will be further reinforced. And with every anti-refugee crime committed, more refugees will respond in turn. Each side provokes the other, and it will take some cool heads and careful planning to prevent things from spiralling out of control. When that comes, it'll be the refugees who suffer the most.

Further reading:

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Padlock

Federal police officer says it's like "Nazi Germany", furious after cops attempt to rob him & his wife

Matt Agorist
The Free Thought Project
Tue, 19 Jan 2016 00:00 UTC
road pirate

"It seems like Nazi Germany, you've got to have the paperwork and the proper authorities to come through Tennessee."

In May of 2014, Ronnie and Lisa Hankins were driving back from his grandfather's funeral in Virginia when they were targeted by a gang of police officers in search of cash.

As Lisa drove the couple westbound down I-40, they saw an officer, who happened to be with the 23rd Judicial District Drug Task Force, and Hankins correctly predicted that they were about to be pulled over.

"I told her we are going to get pulled over," Ronnie said to NewsChannel 5.

"What made you think he was going to stop you?" NewsChannel 5 Investigates asked.

"Because we had out-of-state license plates and my wife is Hispanic," he explained.

Comment: Fascist thuggery is nothing new in the US or anywhere else, but when its reaches the levels we're seeing now, we have to question why. It is no coincidence that the US government/media/military, as a whole, is behaving exactly like the police officers who stopped and searched the Hankins vehicle. As though the entire pathological mindset that permits such behavior has an incredible trickle down effect and tacitly condones such behavior.

How has it come to this?

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Arrow Down

KKK tries to hijack Martin Luther King Day by distributing offensive recruitment flyers


RT
Tue, 19 Jan 2016 18:20 UTC
Ku Klux Klan
© Johnny Milano / Reuters
Residents in towns in at least three US states were targeted by a Ku Klux Klan recruitment drive ahead of Martin Luther King Day.

The group left flyers inside plastic sandwich bags, weighing them down with rocks, on lawns in neighborhoods in Mobile, Alabama; Annaheim in California's Orange County and in two boroughs in New Jersey's Monmouth County, Red Bank and Fair Haven.

They featured an image of Martin Luther King and a "happy birthday" message.

"The blacks have NAACP, the Mexicans have La Raza, the Jews have JDL, and white people have the KKK," it stated.

The leaflets are fulls of racial slurs and misinformed racist claims. They also include contact details for the Loyal White Knights, including a phone number which leads to a graphic voice recording that condemns King's actions during the Civil Rights movement.

Comment: See more: 'We are better than this': Over 700 groups campaign against racism, bigotry and violence

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Bomb

New Jersey schools receive bomb and mass shooting threats


RT
Tue, 19 Jan 2016 16:48 UTC
NJ school
© Reuters
Nine New Jersey high schools have been evacuated or placed on lockdown, after receiving threats of mass shootings. A caller also said he set bombs at the schools.

The schools are located in Bergen County, just across the river from New York City, and the neighboring Passaic County.

At least three of the schools received the threat via voicemail, WNBC reported.

Comment: Meanwhile, across the pond in the UK on the same day: "Four West Midlands schools have been closed and thousands of pupils evacuated after a series of bomb hoaxes on Tuesday."

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Gear

Playing number games with war deaths: Mainstream media's double standard in reporting civilian casualties

Nicolas J S Davies
Consortium News
Sun, 17 Jan 2016 00:00 UTC
civilian deaths iraq
There's a double standard in how the U.S. mainstream media reports civilian deaths depending if the U.S. military is fighting the wars or not, accepting absurdly low numbers when the U.S. is at fault and hyping death tolls when "enemies" are involved, a manipulation of human tragedy, says Nicolas J S Davies.

How many people have been killed in the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Somalia? On Nov. 18, a UN press briefing on the war in Yemen declared authoritatively that it had so far killed 5,700 people, including 830 women and children. But how precise are these figures, what are they based on, and what relation are they likely to bear to the true numbers of people killed?

Throughout the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, the media has cited UN updates comparing numbers of Afghans killed by "coalition forces" and the "Taliban." Following the U.S. escalation of the war in 2009 and 2010, a report by McClatchy in March 2011 was headlined, "UN: U.S.-led forces killed fewer Afghan civilians last year." It reported a 26 percent drop in U.S.-led killing of Afghan civilians in 2010, offset by a 28 percent increase in civilians killed by the "Taliban" and "other insurgents."

Comment: No Western mainstream media source will ever accurately depict the true scale of carnage and devastation wrought by U.S. / NATO forces; to do so would create a political firestorm, incessant demands for an end to such wars and the removal and/or imprisonment of all who participated in these crimes. As war is such a lucrative racket, such truths rarely emerge, except in alternative sites such as here at SOTT.net

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Robot

Technological advances could omit 5 million jobs by 2020 - report


RT
Tue, 19 Jan 2016 04:16 UTC
Technological advances
© Stringer / Reuters
The World Economic Forum said advances in technology, combined with socio-economic demographic changes, could lead to the net loss of 5 million jobs in 15 major economies in 2020. The report said the job loss predictions were "relatively conservative."

"As many as 7.1 million jobs could be lost through redundancy, automation or disintermediation, with the greatest losses in white-collar office and administrative roles," the World Economic Forum stated in its 'The Future of Jobs' report released Monday."The loss is predicted to be partially offset by the creation of 2.1 million jobs, mainly in...Computer and Mathematical or Architecture and Engineering."

Comment: See more: Rise of the Machines? By 2035, half of all jobs in Japan could be performed by robots

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Attention

Nuclear waste disaster: Ugly secrets emerging from Porter ranch methane leak

Catherine J Frompovich
Waking Times
Tue, 19 Jan 2016 16:56 UTC
porter ranch methane leak
Here is a short heads-up regarding the San Fernando Valley methane leak, which is affecting the health of thousands of humans from radon dust and radiation damage, plus other aerosolized toxins and toxic ground water.

Please take 11 minutes to watch this video report:


Comment:

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Fire

Anti-refugee rallies in Germany, Netherlands, Swedish mosque arson attack


Press TV
Tue, 19 Jan 2016 11:10 UTC
dutch protest
© www.japantimes.co.jpDutch gather to protest plans to open a refugee center in Heesh, Netherlands
Anti-refugee protesters have held rallies in the Netherlands and Germany as Europe continues to grapple with an unprecedented influx of refugees mainly from war-torn Middle Eastern states.

On Monday, anti-immigration protesters took to the streets in the Dutch town of Heesh in protest at the planned opening of a refugee center in the town. The gathering turned ugly as police tried to disperse the demonstrators who were throwing fireworks. Police made several arrests. There were also a number of injuries. The rally came after officials held a meeting on Monday to discuss plans of accommodating some 500 refugees over the next 10 years. Demonstrators say the figure is a disproportionally high number for a town of some 12,500 people.

On Monday, far-right Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders demanded that all Muslim male refugees be incarcerated in their asylum centers in Europe, claiming that such a move was necessary to protect women on the streets. Wilders made the remarks in a video for his Freedom Party (PVV) following the recent sexual assaults against women in the German city of Cologne on New Year's Eve.

Counter-rallies in Germany

Also on Monday evening, supporters and opponents of the German anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant PEGIDA movement held rallies in Munich to protest Chancellor Angela Merkel's refugee policies and what they call the Islamification of the European country. Several minor scuffles broke out as pro-refugees known as antifa attempted to block the far-right PEGIDA group's regular Monday march. However, police intervened to keep a distance between the two groups. A similar protest rally was held in the western city of Duisburg on Monday.

Europe is facing an unprecedented influx of refugees who are fleeing conflict-hit zones in North Africa and the Middle East, particularly Syria. Many blame major European powers for the exodus, saying their policies have led to a surge in terrorism and wars, forcing people out of their homes.

According to figures released by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), more than one million refugees reached Europe's shores in 2015. More than 3,300 people either died or went missing in their hazardous journey to the continent.

Comment: The emperors of chaos created this refugee problem and calculated the rising tide of fear and resentment, structured and fomented to lead the world into even greater turmoil and human toll. To make sense of it, we need to see behind the curtain to understand the turnings of the screw, the plan and who benefits.

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