Society's ChildS


Light Saber

Real conscience: Russia to insure Ukrainian refugees receive their pensions


RT
Fri, 29 Aug 2014 09:00 UTC
ukraine refugee russia
© RIA Novosti / Alexey MalgavkoRussian EMERCOM workers meet Ukrainian refugees at a train station in Omsk
All Ukrainian refugees of pension age will receive their pensions in Russia, Deputy PM Olga Golodets has said in a radio interview.

She oversees the social and health policies of the government, and said that Russia and Ukraine had a bilateral agreement allowing citizens to receive pensions in another country if the need arises. "We will pay the pensions to the refugees," Golodets told reporters. She declined to expand on the approximate number of future recipients saying that the number of Ukrainian refugees in Russia was constantly growing.

The deputy PM also told reporters she estimates about 50,000 Ukrainian children will start attending Russian schools at the beginning of the new academic year on September 1.

Earlier this month the United Nations released a report estimating the number of Ukrainian refugees in the Russian Federation at 730,000. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Thursday that this number was nearing 1 million.

Comment: Unlike the psychopathic US/NATO, Russia cares about the humanitarian crisis and is taking steps to actually HELP the people:


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Arrow Down

'After' Great Recession - Americans are unhappy, worried, pessimistic


phys.org
Fri, 29 Aug 2014 12:16 UTC
from phys.org
Unemployed workers signing up for benefits.
The protracted and uneven recovery from the Great Recession has led most Americans to conclude that the U.S. economy has undergone a permanent change for the worse, according to a new national study at Rutgers. Seven in 10 now say the recession's impact is permanent, up from half in 2009 when the recession officially ended, according to the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development. Among key findings in "Unhappy, Worried and Pessimistic: Americans in the Aftermath of the Great Recession," the center's latest Work Trends report, are:
  • Despite sustained job growth and lower levels of employment, most Americans do not think the economy has improved in the last year or that it will in the next.
  • Just one in six Americans believe that job opportunities for the next generation will be better than for theirs; five years ago, four in 10 held that view.
  • Roughly four in five Americans have little or no confidence that the federal government will make progress on the nation's most important problems over the next year.
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Vader

Big surprise: Americans' strongly negative views of Obama significantly outweigh the strongly positive


Gallup
Thu, 28 Aug 2014 00:00 UTC
obama
© REUTERS Kevin Lamarque
Americans are more than twice as likely to say they "strongly disapprove" (39%) of President Barack Obama's job performance as they are to say they "strongly approve" (17%). The percentage of Americans who strongly disapprove of Obama has increased over time, while the percentage who strongly approve has dropped by almost half.

In the first year of Obama's presidency, the percentages of Americans who had strong views about the job he was doing were essentially tied, but the strongly negative responses now significantly outweigh the strongly positive ones. The largest segment of Americans today, 39%, strongly disapprove of Obama's job performance, while 14% moderately disapprove. Another 27% moderately approve, while 17% strongly approve.

Strong disapproval of the president's job performance has been within 30% to 39% the four times Gallup has asked the question -- in 2009, 2010, 2011, and now this year -- but has risen by five percentage points since 2011, and by nine points since the first month Obama was in office. At the same time, strong approval has fallen by nine points in the last three years, and by 15 points since January 2009.


Comment: Hardly big news since Obama has done nothing but disappoint all those who were foolhardy enough to believe his election propaganda. The honeymoon is definitely over.
All over for Obama? Polls say public has given up on his ability to accomplish anything
The Growing Nose of Barack Obama

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Headphones

Ferguson shooting audio recording confirmed to be real by software developer


RT
Fri, 29 Aug 2014 00:29 UTC
Image
© Reuters / Adrees LatifA local resident stands with his arm up over a makeshift memorial at the site where unarmed teen Michael Brown was shot dead in Ferguson, Missouri August 27, 2014.
A new audio recording that allegedly captures a series of gunshots at the time of Michael Brown's death in Ferguson, Missouri, has been confirmed to be real by the developers behind the software used to capture it.

The 12-second audio clip first came to light on CNN earlier this week, and features a man chatting with a friend of his using a video-recording messenger system called Glide. As the unnamed individual records his message, a string of gunfire can be heard in the background. Numerous gunshots can be heard before the action is broken up with a pause. Shortly afterwards, though, another barrage of shots occurs.

At least 10 gunshots total can be heard during the recording, which Glide certified as being captured at 12:02 pm on Saturday, August 9th. This is the same time that 18-year-old Brown, an unarmed black teenager, was shot and killed by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson.

"A Glide user living nearby (whose identity is being protected) was simply using the Glide app on their smartphone exactly as it was designed - to instantly communicate with a friend through our real-time video texting service," the app stated on its blog. "Simultaneously, they also captured audio in the background of the gunshots allegedly fired at Michael Brown."

"Because Glide is the only messaging application using streaming video technology, each message is simultaneously recorded and transmitted, so the exact time can be verified to the second."
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Eye 1

Ferguson protests prompt calls for cops to wear on-body cameras

Aviva Rutkin
Newscientist.com
Wed, 27 Aug 2014 11:42 UTC
On-body cameras mean police use less force, and a range of new apps are giving citizens new ways to hold errant police officers to account
Image
© WTVR
Who watches the watchmen? Since the riots started in Ferguson, Missouri, many have decried the police shooting of teenager Michael Brown and brutal crowd-control tactics at the protests following his death (see "Crowd-control policing in the US is stuck in riot mode"). The uproar has turned into a call for better surveillance of the police. How might that be done?

The US Department of Justice has the power to investigate and overhaul problematic police departments. Ferguson has not yet been investigated, but it's a likely candidate.

"Police misconduct is not usually just caused by one rotten apple. It is caused by a rotten barrel," says Stephen Rushin at the University of Illinois College of Law in Champaign. "A lot of people would argue that you're seeing that in Ferguson."

For the US public, an investigation would not be enough. A petition to the White House has called for a "Mike Brown Law", requiring all police to wear an on-body camera while on duty. It garnered more than 100,000 signatures, which obliges the White House to respond to the request.

On-body cameras automatically record an officer's interactions from a first-person perspective. Quite a few US cities are using them, including Salt Lake City in Utah, and Oakland in California. Last year, Barak Ariel at the University of Cambridge conducted the first major study of on-body cameras, with police in Rialto, California. He found that officers were 60 per cent less likely to use force when wearing them. Citizen complaints, too, fell sharply. Ariel's group is now monitoring the cameras' impact in two dozen police departments around the world.

Comment: Cameras will not change the violent nature of police.
  • Police State USA: Dozens arrested, reporters detained, assembly rights restricted

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Map

Donetsk armed forces kicking SS and taking names: Kiev nazis lose control of Novoazovsk, rebels advance in southeast


RT
Thu, 28 Aug 2014 10:02 UTC
Novoazovsk
© AFP Photo / Alexander KhudoteplyMembers of Ukrainian volunteer battalion Dnipro stand in a truck covered in steel plates near the small southern Ukrainian city of Novoazovsk, Donetsk region, on August 27, 2014.
Kiev's troops had to leave the eastern Ukrainian city of Novoazovsk to save their lives, said the country's Security and Defense Council. The authorities admitted that self-defense forces are advancing and leading a counteroffensive in the southeast.

Along with Novoazovsk, Kiev troops have lost control over the villages of Amvrosiivka and Starobeshevo in the Donetsk Region of Eastern Ukraine.

According to Ukraine's Security and Defense Council, on Wednesday Kiev's troops were shelled by Grad rocket launchers and then attacked by two military columns of self-defense troops.

The columns included tanks and armored infantry vehicles.

"Later in the afternoon two Russian columns entered Novoazovsk," the council said in a statement.


Comment: Ha! Kiev is like the school bully who finally gets pounded by the scrawny kid he's been beating on for months. "He and his big Russian friends teamed up on my, I swear!" Sorry guys, but it turns out the DPR and LPR are just a whole lot better than you. No Russians required.


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Quenelle

Protesters in Kiev demand ouster of Ukrainian president, defense minister


RT
Fri, 29 Aug 2014 09:50 UTC
kiev protest
© AFP Photo / Sergei SupinskyA man holds a placard " General Staff save Ukraine but not your asses!" during the rally in front of the Ukrainian Defence Ministery in Kiev on August 28, 2014.
Hundreds of people have gathered in front of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry in Kiev, demanding resignation of President Petro Poroshenko and the defense minister over the poor handling of the military operation in the southeast.

The demonstrators, many of whom were mothers and wives of the soldiers involved in the fighting in the Donetsk and Lugansk Regions, have blocked traffic at one of the capital's arterial roads, the Vozdukhoflotsky Boulevard.

They called on the army to urgently send reinforcements, including tanks and other heavy military vehicles, to the city of Ilovaysk in the Donetsk Region.

This strategic town was retaken by the self-defense forces after several days of fighting on Wednesday, which led to the encirclement of a large group of Kiev's troops.

The protesters also insisted on the resignation of defense minister Valery Geletey and all other top commanders of Kiev's so-called "anti-terrorist operation" in southeast Ukraine.

Comment: The mothers and wives of the Ukrainians are correct. Their sons and lovers are being sent to the southeast as cannon fodder, and the Donetsk and Lugansk armed forces are making mincemeat out of them. But the solution isn't to send more troops, more weapons; it's to get the hell out of Novorossiya and stop the slow genocide of the people living there.

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Heart - Black

Rotherham U.K. child abuse investigation reveals disturbing facts: Threats, corruption and utter contempt

Paul Peachy
The Independent
Tue, 26 Aug 2014 07:13 UTC
Image
© PAProfessor Alexis Jay led the investigation into child abuse in Rotherham, U.K.
The child victim had been repeatedly raped before she found the courage to report her story to the police. She had tried to escape, but the perpetrators had broken her brother's legs and smashed the windows of her parent's home as a warning.
When she finally visited the police station, she received a text from her main abuser who made it perfectly clear what would happen to her 11-year-old sister if she spoke out. "Your choice," he wrote repeatedly - and the girl refused to give a statement.

The case - from 2001 and detailed in today's independent report - was the last straw for the Home Office researcher who had persuaded the young victim to go to the police. She wrote to the chief constable of South Yorkshire police and at a subsequent meeting with a senior officer and council staff was firmly told never to do such a thing again. When she handed in her research data to the Home Office, the council suspended her erroneously, and then sidelined her so that her part of a report on prostitution was never completed.

The story highlights the atmosphere of cover-up and collusion at Rotherham Council. Nobody in the upper echelons of the child-care system could say they were not aware of the raft of warnings. But a collective failure of leadership meant continued, well-founded warnings about the widespread sexual abuse of children were suppressed, ignored or played down because of short-term political considerations.


Comment: There is more at play here.Take into account that we can find sexual predators among councillors, police officers, social workers up till the highest level of society and you will get the picture.


Comment: For further information:

Rotherham UK: Den of paedophilia covered up by a corrupt system
On-going nightmare in Rotherham UK: About 1,400 children were 'sexually exploited over 16 year period'

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Monkey Wrench

Russia to aid Japan in filtering radioactive water


RT
Thu, 28 Aug 2014 08:26 UTC
fukushima workers
© Agence France Presse/Toru HanaiA worker wearing a protective suit and a mask looks up welding storage tanks for radioactive water, under construction in the J1 area at the Tokyo Electric Power Co's (TEPCO) tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant
RosRAO, a subsidiary of Russian nuclear giant Rosatom, is among the three companies selected to build a system to filter radioactive tritium out of the contaminated water collected at the stricken power plant - a task that has so far defied engineers.

Fukushima Daiichi operator TEPCO, which has resorted to erecting thousands of water tanks to contain the toxic run-off from the plant, is already trialing a system that filters 62 radioactive materials. But the Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS) does not filter tritium, a mildly radioactive byproduct of nuclear generation, which nonetheless means that water cannot be safely discharged into the Pacific Ocean.

RosRAO, which was built on the foundations of Soviet-era waste disposal research institutions, won the TEPCO tender for a filtration system - alongside US firm Kurion Inc, and GE Hitachi Canada, a joint project between the Japanese and US corporations - beating 26 other companies.

Comment: So much for Russia being backwards!

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Bullseye

Is the tide turning? Self-proclaimed republics' forces practically encircle Mariupol


ITAR-TASS
Fri, 29 Aug 2014 08:24 UTC
Mariupol map
© UnknownMariupol is a city of 492.000 inhabitants in normal times.
The self-proclaimed republics' forces have practically encircled the city of Mariupol in Ukraine's embattled southeastern Donetsk region, the Novorossiya News Agency said on Friday.

"During the fighting overnight, the Novorossiya forces took control of the villages of Starchenkovo, Respublika, Zeleny Yar, Boyevoye, Malinovka, Demyanovka, Starodubkovka, Chervonoye Pole and Osipenko," the news agency said.

"At present, the operational situation is the following: Donbass' defenders blocked a section of the Mangush-Osipenko road. The clashes are continuing in Urzuf," it said, adding "Chances are high that today [Ukrainian] punitive troops will be finally entrapped in Mariupol."

Earlier reports said Ukrainian units deployed near Novoazovsk had retreated to Mariupol. "Militias took control of checkpoints and strong points on the outskirts of the city, as well as a bridge across Gruzsky Elanchik River."

Mariupol residents said the regional administration and most of the military had left the city; food stores had run out of stocks, with cereals and sugar no longer available; and drivers were experiencing serious fuel shortages. "People are waiting for the Donetsk People's Republic troops to come," eyewitnesses said.

Militias have begun what they call a humanitarian-combat operation to push the Ukrainian army away from major cities and to stop its artillery strikes on densely populated residential areas.
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