Society's ChildS


Footprints

Ecuador deploys 10K troops to Colombian border, citizens protest for peace


teleSUR
Fri, 20 Apr 2018 00:00 UTC
Ecuadorian troops
© www.telesurtv;netEcuadorian Troops on border with Colombia
Hundreds have called for the rescue of two people recently kidnapped in the region and for the bodies of the two murdered El Comercio journalists and their driver to be returned.

Hundreds of Ecuadoreans marched for peace Thursday as the country continues to come to terms with the kidnapping and murder of two journalists and a driver from local newspaper El Comercio. The demonstrations took place amid the deployment of 10,000 Ecuadorean troops to the Ecuador-Colombia border in the northern province of Esmeraldas in response to the attacks of recent months.

Admiral John Merlo, the sole commander of the border zone operations, announced the details relating to the deployment Thursday. According to Admiral Merlo, the increased military and police presence has "lowered the intensity" of criminal activity in the last few days. It did not, however, prevent the kidnapping of two people in the area.
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Bandaid

Trump mulls pardon of KO boxing legend Jack Johnson, first African American heavyweight boxing champion of the world


RT
Sun, 22 Apr 2018 14:17 UTC
Jack Johnson
© A. E. French/Hulton Archive / Getty ImagesFull-length portrait of American boxer Jack Johnson.
US President Donald Trump may overturn a century-old conviction which saw the first African American heavyweight boxing champion of the world who many believe was locked up on a racially-motivated charge.

At 6ft (1.82 meters) in height and weighing over 200 pounds (91 kg), Jack Johnson, known as the Galveston Giant, pummeled his way past Jim Crow-era barriers to win the heavyweight boxing title in 1908. The champion later spent one year in prison for transporting a white woman across state lines, in a case that was largely seen to be racially motivated.

Trump has now said that after a call by Hollywood actor Sylvester Stallone, he is considering pardoning Johnson, convicted of breaking a law that was amended more than 50 years later for being too vague.

The Galveston Giant

The Texas brawler, who typically picked off opponents as they tired, claimed a resounding victory in the "Fight of the Century," a bout against former champion James Jeffries, amid huge racial tensions.
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Handcuffs

'Smallville' actress arrested in connection with Nxivm sex cult

Priscilla DeGregory and Ruth Brown
Page Six
Fri, 20 Apr 2018 16:35 UTC
Allison Mack
© Getty Images for Amazon StudiosAllison Mack
"Smallville" actress Allison Mack has been arrested for her alleged role in the notorious upstate sex slave cult Nxivm, federal prosecutors announced Friday.

She is expected to appear Friday in Brooklyn federal court on charges of sex trafficking and forced labor.

The bust comes less than a month after Nxivm leader Keith Raniere was collared on the same charges at a luxury villa in Mexico - where they had been hiding out since one of their "slaves" in October went public with her experience in the cult.

Mack, 35, was Raniere's direct "slave" and had a sexual relationship with him - but also acted as a "master" to other slaves, who were forced to have sex with Raniere and get his initials burned into their pubic region with a cauterizing pen, according to the criminal complaint.

Comment: More on NXIVM:

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Bomb

Kabul suicide bomber strikes voter registration center; 57 dead


RT
Sun, 22 Apr 2018 16:22 UTC
kabul bombing
© REUTERS/Omar Sobhani / ReutersAfghan men inspect the site of a suicide bomb blast in Kabul on April 22, 2018.
A suicide bombing in Kabul has left at least 57 dead and over 100 wounded, according to a spokesperson for the public health ministry. The attacker detonated an IED inside a voter registration and ID center, police say.

The explosion happened at about 10am local time in Dasht-e-Barchi. According to eyewitnesses, the death toll is thought to be higher than officials initially indicated, TOLO News reports. Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) has claimed responsibility for the attack, according to its affiliated Amaq website.

Afghanistan is holding elections in October and voter registration centers have been set up around the country. Sunday's blast is the latest attack on election centers over the past week. On Tuesday, armed men kidnapped three employees and two police officers at a center in Ghor.
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Newspaper

Ukraine's far-right celebrates the Nazi SS but Western journalists are more concerned with how Russia will cover the event


RT
Sun, 22 Apr 2018 16:14 UTC
neonazi display
© 8_hammer_8 / Instagram
A notorious Waffen SS division is celebrated with an exhibition of swastikas, Nazi attire and pictures in Lvov, Ukraine, but for some Western journalists, the greater concern is how the Russian media will cover it.

As neo-Nazi extremists prepared to celebrate Adolf Hitler's birthday on April 20 across Germany, Ukraine's far-right set up an open-air exhibition in the city of Lvov to mark the 75th anniversary of the formation of the 1st Galician Division, a notoriously cruel SS fighting force made up predominantly of Ukrainian volunteers.

Dressed in Nazi uniforms of the era, local right-wing extremists organized a display of photographs rarely seen in public before. Nazi-made weapons, vehicles, ammunition, and personal items pertaining to the Galician Division were also exhibited. The event, which will run until May 6, was opened as a precursor to a neo-Nazi march which organizers plan to hold on April 28.

But for some in the Western mainstream media, there's something more disturbing than a celebration of an SS unit that killed hundreds of Polish civilians in the villages of Huta Pieniacka and Pidkamin in 1944.
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Star of David

Palestine to seek UN protection, says investigation into 'Israeli crimes' in Gaza will prove need

Frank Sellers
The Duran
Sun, 22 Apr 2018 15:25 UTC
Gaza land day march return protest
Washington cheers on the Jewish state as it shoots down demonstrators, crickets from human rights inspectors

As Palestinians in Gaza continue their 'March of Return' at the Gaza border, the Palestinian leadership will seek international protection for Palestinians who are 'under Israeli occupation'.

The March began three weeks ago, and has seen dozens killed and thousands more injured by cross border fire from Israelis, who are said be using the banned munition of explosive rounds.

The demonstrations are a six week long protest to conclude on the 15th of May, which marks the 70th anniversary of the Jewish state.

The protesters are seeking the 'right of return' for Palestinian refugees to be able to return to their historical homes in Palestine, from which they were driven in 1948 in order to make way for the new Jewish state of Israel.

Comment: The US will continue its decades-long protection of that "sh*tty little country at the UN, so Israel doesn't feel the need to make any more than token answers to the outrage of the world at large, and then re-write the rules to suit themselves.

Palestinians die not because Israeli soldiers disobey orders but because they follow them
The Israeli army has made it quite clear that top brass orders for snipers allow live ammunition to be directed at Palestinian protesters designated "central instigators", as well as those who simply get within 100 metres of the Gaza Strip perimeter fence, even if they are unarmed.

These open-fire regulations are in blatant contravention of international human rights law, as has been repeatedly pointed out. The Israeli authorities' approach, however, is straight forward: develop one's own "interpretation" of the law which permits what is impermissible.

[...]

Israel's response, however, was not one of serious internal scrutiny, or accountability for violations of international law, but rather to argue that the laws themselves are the problem.

[...]

More than half a century into a military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Israeli authorities are constantly looking for ways to justify policies of discrimination, exclusion and brutality, including through reinterpretations, even if not revisions, to international law.

"If you do something for long enough, the world will accept it," a former head of the international law division in the Israeli Military Advocate General's Office once candidly put it. "The whole of international law is now based on the notion that an act that is forbidden today becomes permissible if executed by enough countries...International law progresses through violations."


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Propaganda

Propaganda rag New York Times: 'Is Russia Sponsoring Terrorism?'


stephenlendman.org
Sat, 21 Apr 2018 14:46 UTC
new york times propaganda
The Russophobic NYT featured neocon hardline Senator Cory Gardner disgracefully asking: "Is Russia Sponsoring Terrorism?"

You can't make this stuff up. The self-styled newspaper of record gives yellow journalism a bad name - featuring Big Lies, suppressing hard truths on major issues from its editions.

Gardner's hate-mongering/trash talk op-ed turned truth on its head, accusing Putin of "causing grievous harm to international peace and stability."

Let's see if I've got this straight. The greatest serial aggressor in world history, America, is responsible for more mass casualties and vast destruction over a longer duration than any previous or current rogue state.

The Russian Federation never attacked another country, never waged an aggressive war. Under Putin, it's the world's leading peace and stability champion.

Its agenda is polar opposite US ruthlessness, its permanent war on humanity, its rage for global dominance, no matter the human cost.

Comment: The New York Times has by now well established itself as a propaganda rag for the imperialists and it would be stretch to call them 'news' anymore. See also:

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Stock Down

New Study: US debt-fueled economy likely to collapse in 5-10 years

Jon Hellevig
Russia Insider
Sun, 15 Apr 2018 13:27 UTC
statue of liberty
America is sinking. Will she take the whole world down with her?
The US economy is about to go belly-up within 5 to 10 years threatening to take the empire down with it. At the same time China and Russia continue their meteoric rise economically, technologically, and militarily. This is why the US Deep State regime is in a crazed hurry to attempt the establishment of an absolute world hegemony within the few years before the window of opportunity for the New World Order shuts forever.

This is why the US and its European vassal regimes have been stepping up their hostilities, trade wars and military provocations against Russia and China.

The Western globalist elite is desperate, therefore literally anything can happen. The fate of the whole world is at stake as the United States tackles its sinking economy.

A fresh study by Awara Accounting shows that two decades of debt-fueled sham growth, creative accounting practices and war spending has pushed the US economy to the brink. It is therefore doubtful whether the already exhausted US economy can bear the additional stress from the massive drive to expand the US global hegemony, the increased confrontation and arms race with Russia and China, as well as the incipient trade war with China. Most probably it can't.

Comment: In light of Trump's attempts to fix the economy, it seems like it really is too little too late. The system has been rotting away for so long now that there is no point of return, and the only thing that will 'fix' it is a complete reset. See also: The US economy is too damaged to be fixed

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Megaphone

Pat Buchanan: Viktor Orban and the 'authoritarian right' on the rise

Patrick J. Buchanan
buchanan.org
Sun, 22 Apr 2018 14:26 UTC
Orban
© UnknownHungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban
A fortnight ago, Viktor Orban and his Fidesz Party won enough seats in the Hungarian parliament to rewrite his country's constitution.

To progressives across the West, this was disturbing news.

For the bete noire of Orban's campaign was uber-globalist George Soros. And Orban's commitments were to halt any further surrenders of Hungarian sovereignty and independence to the European Union, and to fight any immigrant invasion of Hungary from Africa or the Islamic world.

Why are autocrats like Orban rising and liberal democrats failing in Europe? The autocrats are addressing the primary and existential fear of peoples across the West - the death of the separate and unique tribes into which they were born and to which they belong.

Modern liberals and progressives see nations as transitory - here today, gone tomorrow. The autocrats, however, have plugged into the most powerful currents running in this new century: tribalism and nationalism.

The democracy worshippers of the West cannot compete with the authoritarians in meeting the crisis of our time because they do not see what is happening to the West as a crisis.

Comment: It is not simply that people are embracing nationalism and 'tribalism' for their own sake. It is that people have learned that the alternative comes with strings attached that produce other forms of chaos and tyranny. A certain amount of immigration is healthy for a country, but too much will inevitably lead to social conflict. Just as pernicious is the influence of 'liberals' with overwhelming power over sovereign states, such as George Soros. Is nationalism therefore such a bad idea? See:

Daddy Warbucks of the Radical Left: George Soros Hates Putin, Trump and Nationalism

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Newspaper

India: National uproar leads to approval of the death penalty for rape of children under 12


RT
Sat, 21 Apr 2018 15:27 UTC
Indian protest
© Abbas Idrees / Global Look PressDemonstration Against The Rape and murder of Kashmiri girl, India. 21 Apr 2018.
India's Union Cabinet has approved the death penalty for convicted rapists of minors below the age of 12, following mounting pressure on the government. India has been swept by protests over two cases of brutal rape.

Headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Union Cabinet passed an executive order to amend the criminal code during an emergency meeting on Saturday. Those convicted of molesting children under 12 will face the death penalty, and offenders who rape children under the age of 16 will also face stricter punishment.

The minimum sentence will be doubled, from 10 years to 20, according to the Times of India. The amendment also seeks to introduce longer prison sentences for raping women, increasing the minimum from seven years to 10 years up to life in prison.

Comment: From The Times of India:
The Union Cabinet cleared a stringent ordinance on Saturday providing for lengthy jail terms and even the death penalty for sex offenders convicted for raping girls below the age of 12 years while the punishment for the gang rape of a victim below 16 will be imprisonment for life.

The ordinance sets out life sentences for the entire natural life of a convict and rules out anticipatory bail for rape or gang rape of a girl less than 16 years while also providing a two-month time frame for investigation and the same for trial. The ordinance also outlines plans for specialised forensic labs and rape investigation kits for police stations to ensure evidence is gathered and analysed speedily.

The Cabinet met within hours of the PM's return from a tour of Sweden and the UK and after he reviewed the Criminal Law (Amendment) Ordinance, 2018 intended to provide "effective deterrence" against the offence of rape and to instil a feeling of security among women and young girls.

Official sources said the government took serious note of the incidents of rape in various parts of the country and framed a comprehensive response that includes tough sentences and time-bound trials.

The PM returned to Delhi around 8.30am and the Cabinet met at 11.30am to deliberate on the ordinance in the backdrop of nationwide outrage over the Kathua rapemurder of a minor.

The ordinance is the second occasion in recent years when laws on crimes against women have been scrutinised and sentences made tougher after the rape-murder of a young physiotherapy student in Delhi in 2012. The "Nirbhaya case" had led to the inclusion of specific offences and a review of sentencing.

The urgent meeting of the Cabinet seems to have been prompted by criticism that crimes against women are rising and, in the Kathua case, the perception that BJP was slow to dissociate itself from protests in support of the accused and that the case had been given a communal turn.

The ordinance follows Modi's comments in Delhi last week and then in the UK that there should be no politics over rape.

The ordinance states that the minimum punishment for the rape of a girl below 16 years will be increased from 10 years to 20 years, extendable to imprisonment for the entire lifetime of an offender - till the end of a convict's "natural life".

Punishment for the gang rape of a girl below 16 years will mandatorily be imprisonment for the rest of the life of the convict/s.

The minimum punishment in case of rape of women has been increased from rigorous imprisonment of seven years to 10 years, extendable to life imprisonment.

After the Nirbhaya case, the death sentence was included in cases of sexual assault where the victim dies or is reduced to a vegetative state. The ordinance prescribes a six-month time limit for the disposal of appeals in rape cases and also puts restrictions on bail for the accused.
These laws come on the heels of horrifying cases of rape in India:

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