Society's Child

Vatican accuses Israel of risking monks' lives in recent wildfire

Nir Hasson
If Americans Knew
Tue, 30 Jul 2019 17:23 UTC

The Church of the Transfiguration on Mt. Tabor has asked Israel repeatedly for basic services, including running water, but has been refused. A wildfire Friday caused significant damage due to this "negligence."

The Vatican's custodian of holy sites in Israel accused Israeli authorities of risking the lives of monks at a Mount Tabor monastery after a wildfire broke out Friday. The fire raged until early Saturday and required the evacuation of the Franciscan Church of the Transfiguration, which does not have running water.

The fire, which started on Friday evening and was only extinguished on Saturday morning, reignited an ongoing dispute between the Vatican representatives, Custodia Terrae Sanctae, and Israel over connecting the early 20th century church to water and sewage systems. For many years, the church has asked Israel to ensure it has running water, but the authorities demand that the church foot the bill for the infrastructure works, and several rounds of negotiations with officials at the Tourism Ministry and National Infrastructure Ministry have failed to bring results.

Blinding whiteness of 'party of diversity' spawns #DemDebateSoWhite hashtag

RT
Wed, 31 Jul 2019 17:37 UTC

Amid a chorus of Orange Man Bad echoing from the Democratic debate stage, another color was on some voters' minds as Twitter gadflies highlighted the absurdity of 10 white candidates fighting over who'd best represent minorities.

Critics of the achingly PC identity-politics wing of the Democratic Party could hardly believe their luck as the first night of round two of the Democratic primary debates kicked off without a single nonwhite candidate on stage (despite three remaining in the race). A graphic calling out the melanin-challenged slate was soon spreading across social media behind the hashtag #DemDebateSoWhite.

"Remember every one of them calls the president a racist, as they stand on stage without one black person in sight," one user tweeted. Another slammed the Democrats' hypocrisy, pointing out that if 10 white Republicans had shared the stage, an equivalent hashtag would be #1 on Twitter.

Democratic presidential hopeful Marianne Williamson wins over internet after denouncing 'dark psychic force' taking hold in US

RT
Wed, 31 Jul 2019 17:33 UTC

Democratic presidential hopeful Marianne Williamson became the most-searched candidate on Google after her second primary debate, in which she condemned the "dark psychic force" that Donald Trump allegedly unleashed upon the US.

Williamson, an author and celebrity spiritual adviser, was dismissed by many as a fringe candidate when she announced her bid for the White House. But in the second round of the primary debates, she dazzled voters with a zinger-filled performance that diverged from the usual Democratic talking points.

She dominated Google searches following the debate. Before the debate began, Williamson was the top searched candidate in only two states.

Her comments about the worrying state of America's social and political climate were particularly well received.

5 killed, 38 injured in blast targeting police vehicle in Pakistan

IndiaTV
Wed, 31 Jul 2019 17:30 UTC

A powerful blast targeting a police vehicle in Pakistan's restive Balochistan province has killed five people, including two security personnel, and injured 38 others, a top police official said on Wednesday.

The blast took place close to a police vehicle at the Bacha Khan Chowk in the remit of the City Police Station on Tuesday, Quetta's Deputy Inspector-General (DIG) of police Abdul Razzaq Cheema said.

The target of the blast appeared to be the Station House Officer (SHO) of the area who received some injuries and has been shifted to a hospital, the DIG told reporters.

"The bomb went off as soon as SHO Shaffat got down from his vehicle," he said, adding that the condition of the SHO is said to be critical.

Cheema said it was too early to confirm whether it was a suicide attack or the blast caused by a remotely triggered device.

Surprise, surprise? Americans think of media as even more destructive than banks and corporations

RT
Wed, 31 Jul 2019 17:06 UTC

A recent survey has revealed that most Americans believe that the news media, more than any other institution, have a negative impact on their country - findings that are hardly surprising, according to media analyst Lionel.

Conducted by the Pew Research Center, the poll found that 64 percent of Americans believe that the media has a damaging effect on the United States - making them more loathed than other often-demonized institutions such as banks (39 percent) and large corporations (53 percent).

"This doesn't surprise anybody," media analyst Lionel told RT.

The media are not here to provide information ...so that you can make intelligence decisions. No, that's not what the media are. The media are corporate tools.

But numbers don't lie and the news media shouldn't feel singled out. With growing distrust in corporations - especially tech companies - America's establishment institutions can take solace in the fact that none of them enjoy majority support.

Twisted: US Soccer Federation says women's team who complained about gender pay gap earned more than their male counterparts

Sputnik
Wed, 31 Jul 2019 17:18 UTC

Earlier this year, the US women's team filed a lawsuit against the US Soccer Federation over years of alleged 'gender discrimination', seeking equal pay with their male colleagues.

The US Women's National Team has been paid more than the country's Men's National Team over the past decade: the women received $34.1 million in salaries and game bonuses, while the men were paid $26.4 million, the US Soccer president, Carlos Cordeiro, said in a letter released on Monday.

Cordeiro explained that the pay structures for male and female players are different but not because of gender. In fact, the women have a guaranteed salary plus bonuses for the matches while the men have no fixed salary and are only paid for the training camps they attend and the games they play, plus game bonuses. Apart from this, women players enjoy a package of benefits (for example, healthcare) that are not provided to the men, the US Soccer president said.

Comment: This is the 'gender gap' in a nutshell.

Twitter pundits mourn 'suspicious death' of Kremlin critic, who is alive

RT
Wed, 31 Jul 2019 17:01 UTC

A host of Twitter commentators, including a popular CNN strategist, were apparently in such a hurry to put a sinister spin on the death of a long-time Kremlin critic that they 'buried' his son instead.

Condolences poured in following the death of Vladimir Kara-Murza, a prominent Russian historian and TV journalist, who passed away on Sunday at the age of 59. His son, Vladimir Kara-Murza Jr., 37, announced his father's passing on social media, without providing any details on the cause of death.

It was reported, however, that the late journalist, who rose to prominence during the 1990s, was in poor health prior to his death, having suffered several heart attacks.

While the two men do have the same first and last names and have strikingly similar features (they are father and son, after all), it was Kara-Murza Jr. who broke the news, which should have left little room for misinterpretation.

Greedy Ghost takes over Europe: Don't sit, don't eat, in an age of profit before people

Neil Clark
RT
Wed, 31 Jul 2019 16:02 UTC

Harsh punishment meted out to two German backpackers for the 'crime' of brewing their own coffee at the Rialto Bridge in Venice is symptomatic of the way that public space is being eroded and profit being put before humanity.

Don't smell the coffee in Venice, at least not if you brewed it yourself on a portable mini-stove in the center of the historic city instead of paying for it at a coffee shop or café, or you could be in big, big trouble.

Two German tourists who did that recently were fined a total of €950 ($1000) and asked to leave the city.

The tourists made no mess. They caused no obstruction, but they were clobbered under regulations from Venice's city council. These regulations (detailed here) include a €200 fine for sitting down outside to consume food or drinks, except within designated areas. Can you imagine the mentality of the 'passer-by' who reported them to the police?

More than 4m in UK are trapped in deep poverty, study finds

Patrick Butler
The Guardian
Mon, 29 Jul 2019 00:01 UTC

More than 4 million people in the UK are trapped in deep poverty, meaning their income is at least 50% below the official breadline, locking them into a weekly struggle to afford the most basic living essentials, an independent study has shown.

The Social Metrics Commission also said 7 million people, including 2.3 million children, were affected by what it termed persistent poverty, meaning that they were not only in poverty but had been for at least two of the previous three years.

Highlighting evidence of rising levels of hardship in recent years among children, larger families, lone parent households and pensioners, the commission urged the new prime minister, Boris Johnson, to take urgent action to tackle growing poverty.

Comment: It's no real surprise that the "austerity experiment" has lead to widespread and worsening poverty in the UK. Maybe it's time to end the 'experiment'. How many studies need to be done before people recognize the problem?

See also:

Man finds 'mummified' baby while cleaning out his deceased mom's freezer

Kristin Lam
USA Today
Wed, 31 Jul 2019 09:33 UTC

© Christine Byers of the Post-Dispatch
Adam Smith peers into his mother's freezer where he found the remains of an infant wrapped in a box she kept for more
than 40 years.

A Missouri man cleaning out his mother's freezer last weekend made a horrifying discovery: a frozen human baby.

Adam Smith found the baby inside a box his mother had stored in the freezer for as long as he can remember, KMOV-TV reported.

"It still had skin, hair and everything; it was mummified," he told KSDK-TV. "After that, I freaked out, put it in the box and called police right away."

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Society's Child

Vatican accuses Israel of risking monks' lives in recent wildfire

Blinding whiteness of 'party of diversity' spawns #DemDebateSoWhite hashtag

Democratic presidential hopeful Marianne Williamson wins over internet after denouncing 'dark psychic force' taking hold in US

5 killed, 38 injured in blast targeting police vehicle in Pakistan

Surprise, surprise? Americans think of media as even more destructive than banks and corporations

Twisted: US Soccer Federation says women's team who complained about gender pay gap earned more than their male counterparts

Twitter pundits mourn 'suspicious death' of Kremlin critic, who is alive

Greedy Ghost takes over Europe: Don't sit, don't eat, in an age of profit before people

More than 4m in UK are trapped in deep poverty, study finds

Man finds 'mummified' baby while cleaning out his deceased mom's freezer

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