Society's ChildS


Che Guevara

Goodyear must "respect our social rules": French town holds out against multinational giant

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For years tyre giant Goodyear has been trying to stem losses at a plant in northern France, but has failed to persuade unions to agree to its plans. Now it wants to close the factory, and the battle has moved to the courts. How much longer can the struggle continue?

The burly man stands in front of me with folded arms like a bouncer at a night club. "No way," he says. "You can't go in. The lawyer is talking and that's secret."

Through the glass doors I can see rows of workers from the American-owned Goodyear tyre factory, sitting and listening intently. Many wear red T shirts which say Patrons Voyous - the Bosses Are Thugs. They all belong to the CGT (Confederation Generale du Travail) the country's largest trade union.

Eventually I am allowed into the hall to hear a rousing speech from Mickael Wamen, the union's representative at the Goodyear plant. There are loud cheers and fists in the air as he announces the latest tactic - blocking the factory entrance from 4am on Monday morning.

He is in a defiant mood as he tells me about a string of legal victories which have so far prevented the US company from closing the factory with the loss of 1,173 jobs.

Last week, for the first time, a judge ruled in Goodyear's favour. A court in Nanterre rejected the union's case that the tyre manufacturer had violated the correct procedures when informing the union about the closure plan. But Wamen and his union are undaunted, and will appeal.

Employees have also filed a complaint in the state court in Akron, Ohio where Goodyear is based. Seeking $4m in damages and class-action status for their case, they claim the company has violated laws on both sides of the Atlantic.

"Goodyear must certainly be the only multinational in the world where workers have resisted so much," Wamen says. "First of all they wanted to sack 400 of us then it was 800 then they said they wanted to close the factory altogether. But we have resisted every step of the way."

Attention

Riots break out in China's Xinjiang region

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A policeman patrols the road leading into the riot-affected town of Lukqun, Xinjiang province on Thursday
Riots in the restive western Chinese region of Xinjiang have killed 27 people, state media reported, but overseas Uyghur groups questioned the official version of events.

Frequent outbreaks of violence have hit Xinjiang, where the arrival of waves of Han Chinese people over the decades has fueled tensions with the Uyghurs, a Turkic-speaking, predominantly Muslim ethnic group.

The latest bout of unrest took place early Wednesday in the remote township of Lukqun, about 250 kilometers southeast of the regional capital of Urumqi, Chinese state-run media reported.

"Knife-wielding mobs attacked the township's police stations, the local government building and a construction site, stabbing people and setting fire to police cars," state-run newspaper China Daily reported, attributing the information to officials with Xinjiang's regional committee of the ruling Communist Party.

The official broadcaster CCTV posted pictures of burnt out cars in front of a police station whose facade was singed black in places.

Amid the violence, officials told China Daily, eight civilians, nine police officers and security guards, and 10 rioters died.

People 2

Trivial anger a 'result of modern life'

Brits today will fly into a rage at the slightest inconvenience because the comforts of modern life have raised our expectations to the level of irrational toddlers, a psychologist has claimed.
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© AlamyBrits today will fly into a rage at the slightest inconvenience because the comforts of modern life have raised our expectations to the level of irrational toddlers, a psychologist has claimed.
Whereas people's energies were once focused on keeping a roof over their head and food on their plate, most 21st century Westerners have no concerns about their basic needs.

Our comfortable lifestyles may have spoiled us and boosted our expectations to the point where anything short of perfect causes us to act like petulant children, Dr Sandi Mann said.

Consciously challenging ourselves by questioning whether things that make our blood boil are actually threatening our survival could help "rein the anger in" and take a more relaxed attitude, she claimed.

In an opinion article in July's issue of Reader's Digest Dr Mann, a senior lecturer at the University of Central Lancashire's school of psychology, wrote that anger was once key to our survival but has now become targeted at trivial annoyances.

Humans evolved to become angry in certain situations because the emotion motivates us to want things. For example, hunger makes us angry by raising our serotonin levels, prompting us to look for food.

Alarm Clock

Sodomy hazing leaves 13-year-old victim outcast in Colorado town

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© Barry Bortnick/Bloomberg News
At the state high-school wrestling tournament in Denver last year, three upperclassmen cornered a 13-year-old boy on an empty school bus, bound him with duct tape and sodomized him with a pencil.

For the boy and his family, that was only the beginning.

The students were from Norwood, Colo., a ranching town of about 500 people near the Telluride ski resort. Two of the attackers were sons of Robert Harris, the wrestling coach, who was president of the school board. The victim's father was the K-12 principal.

After the principal reported the incident to police, townspeople forced him to resign. Students protested against the victim at school, put "Go to Hell" stickers on his locker and wore T-shirts that supported the perpetrators. The attackers later pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges, according to the Denver district attorney's office.

Eye 1

Remorselss psychopathic child killer Ian Brady: 'I killed for the existential experience'

75-year-old breaks 47-year silence as he tells mental health tribunal of mixing with criminals from Krays to Great Train Robbers and IRA terrorists

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Court artist sketch by Elizabeth Cook of moors murderer Ian Brady appearing via video link at Manchester Civil Justice Centre
Moors murderer Ian Brady denied he was insane as he recalled cooking steaks with Ronnie Kray whilst mingling with some of Britain's most notorious criminals during his half century of incarceration.

In an extraordinary four-hour display which veered between vaunting self-aggrandisement and breath-taking callousness towards his victims and their relatives who were watching via video-link, the child killer failed to express any remorse for his crimes.

Throughout the long-awaited appearance at the mental health tribunal, which must decide whether the 75-year-old - now the UK's longest serving prisoner - be returned to a normal jail from the secure hospital where he is held, Brady repeatedly stonewalled at suggestions he had a personality disorder or that his five murders were evidence that he was "abnormal".

Speaking in a quiet, controlled voice, his Glaswegian accent still pronounced, he hit out at "media fascination" with his past complaining he was demonised and romanticised like Jack the Ripper and comparing reports of the shocking moorland killings to the Sherlock Holmes novel The Hound of the Baskervilles and the Gothic romance Wuthering Heights.

He passed judgment on politicians that had considered his case over the years - praising Labour's Roy Jenkins as the "greatest Home Secretary ever" and claimed to have once discussed Russian literature with James Callaghan.

Brady was particular scornful of Tony Blair who he accused of getting rich off his "war crimes" in Iraq whilst claiming he was effectively a political prisoner after Margaret Thatcher had intervened in his case. He said Britain was a "psychopathic country" that had been invading other nations for 300 years.

Comment: For the the full horrific story about the notorious Moors murders in 1960's Britain, see this documentary


Palette

Charles Saatchi: art supremo with an image problem

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© Olivia Harris/ReutersCharles Saatchi: 'He's like a kid in a sweet shop – he just wants it now.'
The enormously powerful collector has worked hard to guard his privacy. But last week's disturbing photographs of his 'playful tiff' with his wife, Nigella Lawson, have made him the object of relentless speculation and scrutiny

When the art collector Charles Saatchi wants something, he knows how to set about getting it. Gallerists and curators are full of stories about the way he walks into an exhibition, fixes on the single best work of art on show and rushes towards it - in the words of one acquaintance, "like a heat-seeking missile". Those who have seen him in action say that when he likes a piece of art, he will do everything he can to have it for himself. For Saatchi, worth a rumoured £135m, the price is irrelevant.

"He doesn't care whether it's worth £100 or £100m," says a friend. "It's all about the impact of the work when it is in front of him. When he wants something, he will pay on the day for it. More than that, he will have a truck waiting outside the door. It's a kid in a sweet shop and he just wants it now."

But what happens when he doesn't get what he wants? It's a question that many were asking after photographs emerged last weekend of Saatchi, 70, sitting at an outside table of his favourite restaurant, Scott's in Mayfair, with a hand around the throat of his 53-year-old wife, the television chef and former Observer columnist, Nigella Lawson.

In some respects, it was difficult to know what to make of the pictures: there was no context for them and no sense, either, of what might go on within their relationship. The next day, Saatchi dismissed the incident as "a playful tiff" and later accepted a police caution because, in his words: "I thought it was better than the alternative of this hanging over all of us for months."

Comment: Charles and his brother Maurice Saatchi were instrumental in selling Margaret 'The Witch' Thatcher to the people of Britain in 1979.

The toxic influence of such nasty people really does permeate everything:

The Plot Against Art

Spitting Mad Jews and Angry Artists


Card - VISA

California man faces 13 years in jail for scribbling anti-bank messages in chalk

Bank of America
© AFP Photo / Mark Ralston
Jeff Olson, the 40-year-old man who is being prosecuted for scrawling anti-megabank messages on sidewalks in water-soluble chalk last year now faces a 13-year jail sentence. A judge has barred his attorney from mentioning freedom of speech during trial.

According to the San Diego Reader, which reported on Tuesday that a judge had opted to prevent Olson's attorney from "mentioning the First Amendment, free speech, free expression, public forum, expressive conduct, or political speech during the trial," Olson must now stand trial for on 13 counts of vandalism.

In addition to possibly spending years in jail, Olson will also be held liable for fines of up to $13,000 over the anti-big-bank slogans that were left using washable children's chalk on a sidewalk outside of three San Diego, California branches of Bank of America, the massive conglomerate that received $45 billion in interest-free loans from the US government in 2008-2009 in a bid to keep it solvent after bad bets went south.

Newspaper

President al-Assad gives interview to the German newspaper

Assad
© Unknown
President Bashar al-Assad gave the following interview to the German Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper:

Interviewer: Mr President, how do you view the situation in your country? The Syrian Army has lost control over large parts of Syria, in other words those areas are outside the control of central government. What's your take on the situation?

President Assad: Your question requires us to put things into their proper context: this is not a conventional war with two armies fighting to control or liberate particular areas or parts of land. What we are in fact dealing with is a form of guerrilla warfare.

As for the Syrian Army, there has not been any instance where our Armed Forces have planned to enter a particular location and have not succeeded. Having said this, the Army is not present - and should not be present - in every corner of Syria. What is more significant than controlling areas of land, is striking terrorists. We are confident that we can successfully fight terrorism in Syria, but the bigger issue is the ensuing damage and its cost. The crisis has already had a heavy toll but our biggest challenges will come once the crisis is over.

Arrow Down

New Jersey hospital deports unconscious Polish stroke victim

Stroke Victim
© Joe Raedle/Getty Images/AFP
A US hospital deported an unconscious stroke victim after noticing that the patient was an undocumented immigrant from Poland. Polish health officials are furious that the man was "dumped on their doorstep" before the transfer was approved.

"Imagine being carted around like a sack of potatoes," Polish Consul General Ewa Junczyk-Ziomecka told New York Daily News, describing the incident in which 69-year old Wladyslaw Haniszewski was unconsciously deported to his homeland.

Haniszewski, who suffers from a blood disease, lived in Perth Amboy, N.J., for 30 years. He recently lost his job, apartment, and health insurance, and was forced to move into a homeless shelter, the Daily News reports.

After the man suffered a dangerous stroke, a friend named Jerzy Jedra took him to the New Jersey hospital for treatment. When officials at the Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital noticed that the patient had no health insurance and lived in the US without documentation, they sent the comatose man to Poland. US hospitals are legally required to provide emergency care to anyone who needs it, but are allowed to deport stabilized undocumented immigrants.

But in order to deport someone, a US hospital must first get consent from either the patient, a family member, or a court guardian. Officials at the Polish consulate claim that no one was contacted, and that Haniszewski's family was never informed that the man was deported.

Pistol

5-year-old U.S. girl fatally shoots herself

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Police say a 5-year-old girl fatally shot herself when her mother locked her inside their home and went to the store.

The New Orleans Police Department said in a news release the girl was home alone Sunday, somehow found her mother's revolver, and accidentally shot herself in the head.