Society's ChildS


Heart - Black

Western NGO workers live luxuriously while Ebola orphans left to fend for themselves in Liberia

Liberia Royal Grande hotel
Money spent on funding aid worker's lavish accommodation at the Royal Grand Hotel could be better used to help the country's children who are orphaned due to the virus
Western aid agencies are using the plight of Africa's Ebola orphans to fund a lavish lifestyle in $800-a-night hotels and leaving the children to fend for themselves, according to Liberia's development chief.

Children who were forced to watch their parents die and were then shunned by their community are being ignored while useless facilities are being built, according to Julia Duncan-Cassell, Liberia's minister in charge of saving the orphans.

She accused the agencies of handing out $235 daily allowances that are higher than her salary - and that the money invested is wasted on expensive hotels and driving around in big cars.

Meanwhile thousands of orphans have been abandoned to the care of neighbours and relatives who are struggling to find money and food to support them.

A MailOnline investigation has discovered that just 531 of Liberia's estimated 12,000 orphans are receiving formal help in government safe homes despite the hundreds of millions of pounds of Western aid pouring into the country.

Comment: If this sounds eerily familiar, it is because there is some history of Western NGO's using a crisis for their own benefit:


Bulb

Russia to create alternative option to Wikipedia

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© Klimentyev Mikhail—Corbis
Russia plans to create its own "Wikipedia" to ensure its citizens have access to more "detailed and reliable" information about their country, the presidential library said on Friday.

Citing Western threats, the Kremlin has asserted more control over the Internet this year in what critics call moves to censor the web, and has introduced more pro-Kremlin content similar to closely controlled state media such as television.

Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia assembled and written by Internet users around the world, has pages dedicated to nearly every region or major city within Russia's 11 time zones, but the Kremlin library said this was not good enough.

"Analysis of this resource showed that it is not capable of providing information about the region and life of the country in a detailed or sufficient way," the state news agency RIA quoted a statement from the presidential library as saying.

"The creation of an alternative Wikipedia has begun." It was not known whether the project might affect Russians' access to the existing Wikipedia in any way.

President Vladimir Putin has branded the Internet a "CIA special project", and the Kremlin has said it must protect its online realm from threats from the West, as ties between the Cold War-era foes have hit a new bottom over the Ukraine crisis.

Since August, bloggers in Russia with more than 3,000 followers must register with the Moscow's mass media regulatory agency and conform to rules applied to larger media outlets.

And since February, state authorities have been able to block websites without a court order. The webpages of two leading Kremlin critics were among the first to be barred.

The presidential library statement said that 50,000 books and archive documents from 27 libraries around Russia had already been handed over for the process of establishing the "alternative Wikipedia".

Candle

Russian orthodox Patriarch speaks out against Kiev's deliberate destruction of churches and targeting of clerics

Patriarch Kirill
Patriarch Kirill, of Moscow and All Russia
November 14, 2014. His Holiness, Patriarch Kirill, of Moscow and All Russia, has stated that around fifty churches of the Russian Orthodox Church have been either completely destroyed or heavily damaged as a result of actions of the Ukrainian military since the beginning of the armed opposition in Ukraine this spring.

The RIA News Agency has reported that the Patriarch delivered a speech during a meeting with learners of the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Federation Ministry for Foreign Affairs at the Christ the Savior Cathedral, in which he noted: "Currently there is a forceful opposition against our Church - three clergymen have been killed, over ten priests have been arrested, detained, and tortured, and many clerics have been expelled from the country. Approximately fifty of our churches are either completely destroyed or heavily damaged by precision strikes of the Ukrainian artillery."

Comment: Since ancient times, monasteries, churches, and other holy buildings have been legally designated as places of asylum, allowing such shelters to grant refuge to anyone. Unfortunately, no asylum can grant protection from violence by the Ukraine military who have deliberately and heartlessly bombed churches, shelters and water systems with no concern for the humanitarian disaster they have created.

Ukraine's self-destruction: Unique church shelled, burnt to the ground

Kiev Nazis murder over 40 children in Donbass

Eastern Ukraine becomes a new Gaza thanks to Western intervention


Arrow Down

Oh no!! Chocolate supply endangered by disease, drought and displacement by other crops

chocolate
© Maurizio Cattelan and Pierpaolo Ferrari/Bloomberg Pursuits

Chocolate has begun a journey from being very loved and very common, like beer, to being very loved and a good deal less common, like Bordeaux
Mark your calendar: January 1, 2020.

As this future year unfolds, the gap between how much cocoa the world wants to consume and how much it can produce will swell to 1 million metric tons, according to Mars Inc. and Barry Callebaut AG (BARN), the world's largest chocolate maker. By 2030, the predicted shortfall will grow to 2 million tons. And so on.

Because of disease, drought, rapacious new markets and the displacement of cacao by more-productive crops such as corn and rubber, demand is expected to outstrip supply by an additional 1 million tons every decade for the foreseeable future. Here, now, as you read these words, the world is running out of chocolate, Bloomberg Pursuits will report in its Holiday 2014 issue.

Last year, we again consumed more cocoa than we were able to produce. This year, despite an unexpected bumper crop, supply barely kept pace with the recent upswing in demand. From 1993 to 2007, the price of cocoa averaged $1,465 a ton; during the subsequent six years, the average was $2,736 -- an 87 percent increase.

Comment: Chocolate has been found to have numerous health benefits, so it is unfortunate to see that supplies have been waning due to climactic affects and disease. As with other crops, it appears that BigAg will continue find ways to genetically modify chocolate, notwithstanding any serious health consequences for humans. One wonders if chocolate supply scare tactics are being used to garner support for genetic engineering?


Ambulance

Doctor with Ebola dies at Nebraska hospital

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© Reuters / Brian C. FrankDr. Martin Salia is placed on a stretcher upon his arrival at the Nebraska Medical Center Biocontainment Unit in Omaha, Nebraska, November 15, 2014.
Dr. Martin Salia, a surgeon who contracted the Ebola virus while working in Sierra Leone, has died at a hospital in Nebraska from the virus.

The 44 year-old was taken to hospital in Omaha on Saturday, but passed away on Monday according to hospital officials.

"We are extremely sorry to announce that the third patient we've cared for with the Ebola virus, Dr. Martin Salia, has passed away as a result of the advanced symptoms of the disease," the hospital said in a statement, which was reported by AFP. The other two patients who were treated at the facility were given clean bills of health.

The 44 year-old, who was a permanent US resident, contracted the virus while working at a hospital in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, according to his relatives. He was already suffering from advanced symptoms, including kidney and respiratory failure when he arrived at the Nebraska Medical Center, which is one of four US hospitals equipped to handle treatment of the disease and has the largest bio-containment unit in the country.

Salia, who was based in the state of Maryland, but spent a significant amount of time in Freetown, had originally been tested for the disease in early November. His test came back negative leading to jubilant celebrations and embraces from worried colleagues, the Washington Post reported. However, his symptoms did not go away and he took another test on November 10, which was positive forcing everyone who had been in physical contact with the 44 year-old into quarantine

"We were celebrating. If the test says you are Ebola-free, we assume you are Ebola-free," said Komba Songu M'Briwa, who cared for Salia at the Hastings Ebola Treatment Center in Freetown, the Washington Post added. "Then everything fell apart."

Salia, who was originally from Sierra Leone, was the tenth patient to be treated on US soil for the virus. He is the second person to have died in the United States from Ebola. In October, a Liberian man, Thomas Eric Duncan, died at a Texas hospital from

Sheeple

Fresno State, California student - 'stressed about midterm exams' - arrested for having sex with sheep

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A sheep that was sexually assaulted by a Fresno State student is now being monitored by a veterinarian.

Students on campus are still talking about what everyone is calling the "sheep incident." This afternoon, that incident has Fresno State police involved, and a computer engineering student is now facing serious charges.

Fresno State Ag students say shock, doesn't even begin to describe what happened on campus. It was late at night, a student heard noises, and found a 23-year-old inside the sheep barn having sex with one of the ewes.

Student Marisa Burkdoll said, "It's just kind of disgusting and revolting and personally makes me angry, I mean why would you do that?"


Stormtrooper

Terrorizing practice: Cops burst into school, weapons drawn, in surprise 'active shooter drill'

shooter drill
© Reuters/Jason Redmond
Teachers and students at a Florida middle school got the shock of their lives as an unannounced 'lockdown active shooter drill' sparked panic as police burst into classrooms with weapons drawn, drawing sharp criticism from the community.

Students at Jewett Middle Academy in Winter Haven, Florida, spoke of the terror they experienced as police officers carried out their 'active shooter drill' inside classrooms - without informing teachers ahead of time about the exercise.

Lauren Marionneaux, a seventh-grader, told WTVT-TV that when the police officers crashed into her classroom with weapons drawn, she immediately imagined the worst.

"A lot of people started getting scared because we thought it was a real drill," Lauren said. "We actually thought that someone was going to come in there and kill us."

Later, school officials sent an email to inform parents about the drill, which was compared to fire drills that schools regularly conduct.

"Parents, students and staff are typically not notified about lockdown drills. For example, we do not give advanced notice of fire drills in order to evaluate how safety procedures work...We regret any concern that parents and students might have experienced in how the drill was conducted," the letter stated.

But for many parents, however, receiving a letter from school officials after the fact was unacceptable.

Stacy Ray, whose daughter texted her during the police exercise, said she believed the school was experiencing a real live shooting.

"I'm panicking because I'm thinking that it's a legitimate shooter coming, that something bad is happening at the school," Ray told Fox 13. The video below shows police officers in an 'active shooter exercise' in the state of Massachusetts.

Magic Hat

Nine of the biggest myths that people believe about the system

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Years ago, an elderly, frail Japanese martial arts master once boasted a 200-0 record against his opponents. He claimed to have a unique power that allowed him to inflict serious injury on people without actually laying a finger on them.

Was it Chi? Magic? None of the above. It was a total scam. But that didn't matter. You see, the legend of the master's powers turned out to be far more powerful than reality. His core following of students believed in the master so much that they would fling themselves across the dojo whenever he raised his pinky finger.

And anyone who saw the display would become transfixed by the perception of the master's extraordinary abilities. It was an incredible case of mass delusion. Everyone believed it, including the master himself. He was so confident in his skills that he put up a $5,000 challenge that he could beat any fighter in the world.

A mixed martial arts champion accepted the wager, and the result wasn't pretty.

Network

State Department computers hacked, email shut down

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© AP
The State Department has taken the unprecedented step of shutting down its entire unclassified email system as technicians repair possible damage from a suspected hacker attack.

A senior department official said Sunday that "activity of concern" was detected in the system around the same time as a previously reported incident that targeted the White House computer network. That incident was made public in late October, but there was no indication then that the State Department had been affected. Since then, a number of agencies, including the U.S. Postal Service and the National Weather Service, have reported attacks.

The official said none of the State Department's classified systems were affected. However, the official said the department shut down its worldwide email late on Friday as part of a scheduled outage of some of its Internet-linked systems to make security improvements to its main unclassified computer network. The official was not authorized to speak about the matter by name and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The official said the department expects that all of its systems will be operating as normal in the near future, but would not discuss who might be responsible for the breach. Earlier attacks have been blamed on Russian or Chinese attackers, although their origin has never been publicly confirmed.

The State Department is expected to address the shutdown once the security improvements have been completed on Monday or Tuesday.

Sherlock

Inspector: No sign of investigation in 1,111 New Orleans sex crime-related calls


The report is full of harrowing details alleging that five New Orleans Police Department detectives in the special victims unit may have failed to investigate sex crimes over a three-year period.

But one case stands out.

According to the seven-page document released Wednesday by the city's Office of Inspector General, a 2-year-old was brought to a hospital emergency room after an alleged sexual assault. Tests would show the toddler had a sexually transmitted disease, the report said.

The detective in the case, who worked in the child abuse unit, wrote in his report that the 2-year-old "did not disclose any information that would warrant a criminal investigation and closed the case," the inspector general's report said.

The detective -- identified as Akron Davis by the New Orleans Police Department after the report was released -- is one of five officers whose reports were examined in the investigation. Only nine detectives worked in the special victims unit during the period that was investigated.

Inspector General Ed Quatrevaux said the five officers are not rookies. Police Superintendent Michael Harrison said the detectives were "seasoned" and later said in a statement that they had been with the department at least 16 years each.

"These people should have known... the right way to do things," Quatrevaux said.