Society's ChildS


Books

Asia dominates global school rankings while the US drops to 28th place

Asian schools
© Reuters
The OECD has published the biggest ever global school rankings with Asian countries coming in the top five, in the first truly global survey of education standards.

Singapore is in the lead again followed by Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan and Taiwan.

Finland, well known for its high quality education, was the top European country coming in sixth, while Sweden fell to 35th place, following warnings from the OECD that it had serious problems in its education system. The US was well down in 28th place.

African countries dominated the bottom rankings with South Africa and Ghana coming in last.

In the last similar study, the 2012 Pisa tests, Singapore was in second place with China in first and Hong Kong third.

The OECD's education director, Andreas Schleicher, said that many high performing Asian countries are excellent at attracting the most talented teachers.

Attention

Factory in Manila consumed by chemical explosion fire

factory fire manila
© STR/AFP/Getty Images"We were all confused because almost everybody was panicking," said worker Jun Panalo.
At least 65 people have been reported missing or dead after a fire consumed a rubber slipper factory in a suburb of the Philippine capital of Manila on Wednesday.

Rex Gatchalian, mayor of the suburb of Valenzuela where the disaster took place, reportedly said that it took fire fighters four hours to quell the blaze and bodies were found inside the building.

According to the mayor's account, the explosion occurred when welding sparks near the factory entrance caused an explosion of the chemicals used in the manufacturing process.

Arrow Down

Adding insult to injury: New drilling project approved in same reservoir near Deepwater Horizon site

Oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill
© AP Photo/Charlie RiedelOil from the Deepwater Horizon spill pools against the Louisiana coast along Barataria Bay Tuesday, June 8, 2010.
A new offshore drilling project in the Gulf of Mexico has gotten federal approval and is set to begin near the site of the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster that killed 11 workers and sent millions of gallons of oil pouring into the Atlantic Ocean in 2010.

According to Harper's Magazine, which first reported the news late Tuesday, the Bureau of Safety and Environment Enforcement approved a drilling permit on April 13 for the Louisiana-based LLOG Exploration Offshore LLC, which will drill for oil and gas in the deep-water Macondo reservoir, the site of the 2010 explosion. The agency previously approved the company's exploration plans in October after the Bureau of Ocean Management conducted an environmental review of the project.

LLOG will be the first company to attempt tapping those same reserves since BP's catastrophic effort.

Comment: It is appalling that the industry was given approval to drill near this site, but rather unsurprising given the power wielded by the oil industry. The Gulf of Mexico and the coastal communities that were impacted by the Deepwater Horizon spill are still suffering from this disaster and the effects are expected to last for decades. Worse, the footprint of BP's disaster has been shown to extend well beyond the Gulf of Mexico, and in fact reaches into other parts of the Atlantic Ocean and the North American continent.


Eye 1

Iowa landowner says he was offered teenage prostitute by oil company

man cigar oil
© Shutterstock
A southeast Iowa man claims an oil company offered him a "$1,200 teenage prostitute" if he would allow a crude oil pipeline to cross his property.

Hughie Tweedy said he recorded a senior pipeline representative from Dakota Access LLC offer him three times the "sexual services of a woman," including a final offer of an 18-year-old prostitute.

"If an old junkyard dog like me was offered the sexual services of little girls to get my hackles down, I wonder what was offered to the powerbrokers of this state to gain their support for silence," said Tweedy, a self-described libertarian. "Shame, shame, shame."

Dakota Access, a subsidiary of Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners, wants to build the 1,134-mile, $3.8-billion Bakken Pipeline to carry crude oil from North Dakota to Illinois.

Tweedy doesn't want the pipeline on his land in Montrose, and he doesn't think the government should force him to allow the oil company access to his property through eminent domain.

Powertool

India plans to build 100 elites-only 'smart' cities

super city
© unknown
Have you ever wondered what would happen if the rich kept getting richer? I'm not talking about the 1%. They mostly consist of upper-middle-class business owners and real estate agents. No, I'm talking about the 1% of the 1%. The real power behind the throne. The financial and political elite. If their wealth and power continued to grow by leaps and bounds at the expense of everyone else, how do you think they would live their lives?

If you're curious about the nature of this dystopian future, then look no further than India, where the government is preparing to break ground on the new "Gift City" which will segregate the elites from the rabble, and should be completed by 2021. It will be a glittering enclave with top-notch building codes, 24-hour electricity, and clean water.

Fire

Truck explodes into huge spectacular fireball on Russian motorway

Image
Blast: Paint truck erupts into fireball in terrifying explosion
This is the moment a paint truck exploded into a raging 100 metre fireball as it ripped across the Russian countryside.

Two people were injured in the explosion, with one man blasted 10 metres when the shockwave hit his house as he was filming the incident.

In the terrifying clip, the truck, parked on the roadside in Stavropol, southwest Russia, can be seen burning as black smoke rises into the sky.

Moments later a huge explosion rips through the vehicle, at which point the video becomes distorted as the man in the nearby house is thrown off balance by the blast.

Ambulance paramedic Olesya Nadezhda Kostyuk said: "We have hospitalised the injured in the regional hospital with 2nd degree burns and concussion.

"During the explosion, one man was in his house situated close to the road. [The] wave threw him 10 metres."


Fire

Bus explosion filmed on Massachusetts Turnpike

Image
Bus bursts into flames on Massachusetts Turnpike
Authorities in the Boston area said all passengers were safely evacuated from a bus before it exploded at the side of the Massachusetts Turnpike.

The bus departed New York City about 11 a.m. Monday and spent about two hours undergoing repairs in Connecticut before continuing on the road, but passengers started to smell smoke about 4:45 p.m. in Newton, minutes away from the bus' final destination in Boston.

"A car that was in front of us, a man gets out and starts screaming, 'you're on fire, you're on fire.' So we're all on the bus and starting to panic," passenger Madeline Halimi told cable network NECN.

The bus pulled to the side of the Massachusetts Turnpike and the 46 passengers evacuated the vehicle just before an explosion, which was caught on camera.


Attention

'Decades of neglect' have led to a railway crisis in the United States

Image
© Reuters / Bryan WoolstonRescue workers search for victims in the wreckage of a derailed Amtrak train in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania May 12, 2015.
The US is no stranger to fatal railway accidents: over the last decade, dozens of lives were lost, and hundreds of people injured in train wrecks. All this is due to lack of funding, infrastructure and development, critics say.

The latest Amtrak train crash has left at least five people killed and dozens injured, with the cause of the crash remaining unknown.


It came on the eve of the railway budget bill that could see the funding for Amtrak slashed by 20 percent, from $1.4 to 1.13 billion.

Comment: Decades of neglect have left most of the US in shambles. Check out:


Attention

Fire at Indian Point nuclear reactor causes oil spill into Hudson River

Image
© GUSTAVUS GRICIUSSmoke is seen over the Indian Point nuclear power plant in New York.
Oil leaked into the Hudson River on Sunday after a transformer fire and explosion a day earlier at the Indian Point nuclear plant north of New York City, and Governor Andrew Cuomo said he was concerned about environmental damage.

Cuomo visited the plant for a briefing on Sunday. The governor, who in the past has called for the plant to be shut down because of its proximity to densely populated New York City, also visited the plant on Saturday.

When the transformer exploded, it released oil into a holding tank, which then overflowed, sending oil onto the ground and into the river, Cuomo told reporters on Sunday after he was briefed by emergency and plant officials.

He said crews were working to contain and clean up the oil spill but it was not clear yet how much oil had been released.

Comment: As Robert Kennedy Jr., Chief Prosecuting Attorney for Riverkeeper and Senior Attorney at NRDC, said:
"The more you learn about Indian Point, the more you know it must close. It's too old, near too many people, and too vulnerable to fire, earthquake, outside attack and a host of other potential disasters. What's more, we simply don't need Indian Point's dirty, dangerous power: current surpluses are sufficient to consign Indian Point to the scrap heap when its licenses expire if not sooner. New York is safer, more secure and simply better off without Indian Point."



Sheriff

NY Port Authority sued by police union for unjust phone search

Image
© Image from wikipedia.orgNew York Port Authority
A police union is suing the New York Port Authority over improper policing, claiming in a federal civil rights suit that the agency had no right to search officers' private cell phones during the investigation of a graduation party gone wild.

In seven documented instances, Port Authority investigators coerced officers into giving up access to private cell phone data without proper warrants or presence of counsel, says the lawsuit filed Wednesday by the Port Authority Police Benevolent Association and one former officer.

"The Port Authority's policy of searching the cellphones of its probationary employees is an impermissible violation" of the fundamental right to privacy, the lawsuit asserts.

Comment: Another case of police officers thinking they are above the law.