Society's ChildS


Star of David

New Israeli settlements a crime - UN official

settlement
© Ahmad Gharabli/AFPIsraeli settlement of Maale Adumim in the occupied West Bank on the outskirts of Jerusalem, August 16, 2023
The developments pose a risk to the possibility of a Palestinian state, human rights commissioner has warned...

New Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank are growing at a record rate, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk has warned.

The senior UN official has warned that the establishment and continuing expansion of settlements amount to the transfer by Israel of its own civilian population into the territories that it occupies, which, he reiterated, is a war crime under international law.

Commenting on Friday on a report to be presented to the Human Rights Council in Geneva in late March, he added that the settlements risk eliminating any practical possibility of a Palestinian state.
"The West Bank is already in crisis. Yet, settler violence and settlement-related violations have reached shocking new levels, and risk eliminating any practical possibility of establishing a viable Palestinian State."

Bullseye

Finally: Women's pro golf tour updates policy to only allow biological females

Transgender golf star Hailey Davidson
© @haileydgolf/InstagramTransgender golf competitor Hailey Davidson
Trans golfer Hailey Davidson, who claimed first in the NXXT Women's Classic earlier this year is now banned from events.

The NXXT Women's Pro Tour,a professional women's golf tour based in Florida, has updated its policy to ban transgender athletes from competition, announcing Friday that only competitors who are "biological female at birth" will be able to participate in tour-sanctioned events.

This decision follows transgender golfer Hailey Davidson's controversial win at the NXXT Women's Classic earlier this year.

NXXT GOLF CEO Stuart McKinnon described in a statement the change in policy as a "crucial" step in helping to "uphold the competitive integrity that is the cornerstone of women's sports."

Airplane

Alaska Airlines flight carrying pets arrives with cargo door open while Boeing faces $1B lawsuit

alaska airlines safety issues
© AFP via Getty ImageAlaska Airlines has come under a litany of criticism over safety issues this winter. 3
Alaska Airlines has come under a litany of criticism over safety issues this winter.
Embattled Alaska Airlines is at the center of a second aviation drama after a plane arrived at an airport gate in Portland, Ore. last Friday with its cargo door open.

The cargo hold was stowing passenger's pets, according to local TV station KOIN, although none of the animals were injured. The plane had flown in from Los Cabos, Mexico.

Alaska Airlines told KOIN in a statement that "there was no indication to the crew that the door was unsealed during [last Friday's] flight and all indications point to the door partially opening after landing."

"Our maintenance teams inspected the aircraft, replaced a spring in the door, tested the door and reentered it into service," the Alaska Airlines statement concluded.

Comment: Much of Boeing's problems are self-inflicted: But, there are also the twin whammies of a growing competency gap, exacerbated by lunatic DEI policies. Turns out the best qualified employees still seem to be old white guys.


Whistle

Anti-genocide protester slashes Lord Balfour painting with knife in UK

Balfour painting
© Palestine ActionA protest targeting a painting of Lord Arthur James Balfour, the former prime minister and foreign secretary, at Trinty College, Cambridge.
Politicians have condemned a "moronic act of vandalism" after pro-Palestine activists damaged a portrait of Lord Balfour.

Palestine Action shared a video on social media of a demonstrator defacing and slashing the historic painting, which hangs at the University of Cambridge's Trinity College.

In the clip, a woman can be seen spraying red paint before using a sharp object to slice open the canvas.

Lord Arthur James Balfour was a Conservative prime minister between 1902 and 1905. He later became the foreign secretary, when he signed the Balfour Declaration in 1917.

Comment: See also:



Attention

Sick, and Sick of It All

Pollock Portrait
© Off-Guardian
Sometimes it takes our bodies to return us to our souls. And our little pains to remind us of the indescribable pain of the savage killing and dismemberment of innocent children and adults in Gaza and many other places by U.S. weapons produced in clean factories by people just doing their jobs and collecting their pay at "defense" contractors Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Pfizer, etc.

Abstraction is the name of the game as human bodies are torn to pieces "over there" and the obscene profits are transferred at the computer terminals day and night.

Living in a technological world of the internet divorces us from real life as it passes into inert, abstract, and dead screen existence. It should not be surprising that people grow sick and tired of the steady streams of "news" that fills their days and nights.

So much of the news is grotesque; propaganda abounds. Stories twisted right and left to tie minds into knots. After a while, as Macbeth tells us, life seems like "a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets its hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

Being sick and out of it for a while allows one a different perspective on the world. This is especially true for those of us who often write about politics and propaganda.

A recent illness has forced me to step away from my usual routine of following political events closely. Fleeting headlines have been all I've noted for the past two weeks. While lying around waiting for the illness to leave, I would drift in and out of reveries and memories that would float to semi-consciousness.

Feeling miserable prevented any focus or logical thinking, but not, I emphasize, thinking in a deeper, physical sense. But it also gave me a reprieve from noting the repetitive and atomizing nature of internet postings, as if one needs to be hammered over the head again and again to understand the world whose realities are much simpler than the endless scribblers and politicians are willing to admit.

Bizarro Earth

BBC knew of child-rape allegations against refugee brothers whilst filming 'fawning' documentary about them

uk refugee migrant syria
The brothers, Mohamed (left) and Omar (right) pictured in the 2016 BBC documentary
A Syrian refugee who was in a 'fawning' BBC documentary about the plight of asylum seekers has been convicted of raping a 13-year-old girl seven times.

Omar Badreddin appeared alongside his brother Mohamed in a 2016 Newsnight feature which followed them on an 11-month journey from Syria to Newcastle as part of the refugee resettlement programme.

This week, the siblings, along with two other defendants, were sentenced to a total of 38-and-a-half years in jail for the rape of a 13-year-old girl between August 2018 and April 2019.

Comment: A tragedy which is a predictable consequence of Western warmongering and weaponised mass migration, both of which are facilitated by propaganda media like the BBC:


Cell Phone

Kevin O'Leary ready to snap up TikTok if House bill clears the way

tiktok kevin o leary buy company
© The Daily CallerKevin O'Leary is ready to buy TikTok if the Chinese company ByteDance is forced to sell.
Shark Tank co-star Kevin O'Leary announced Friday he will buy TikTok if a bill passes to force Beijing-based ByteDance to sell the app in order for it to continue operating in the United States.

The "Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act" would give ByteDance about six months to sell TikTok if enacted. O'Leary asserted he wants to purchase the company and outlined the terms of a potential deal in an interview on Fox News' The Story With Martha MacCallum.

Broom

Asylum seekers disrupt Icelandic Parliamentary debate on stricter migration law

iceland parliament
© Wikimedia Commons/Bragi Thór JosefssonThe Icelandic parliamentary chambers. Migrants Disrupt Icelandic Parliamentary Debate on Stricter Migration Law PM says keeping parliament open is "important for our democratic tradition".
Three migrants on Thursday disrupted proceedings in the Icelandic parliament, demanding family unification and housing, as the body was starting a debate on implementing stricter immigration laws. One of the men climbed over the railing from the upper gallery, making it look like he intended to jump onto the chamber floor.

"The Icelandic asylum seekers made noise, shouting and calling from parliamentary platforms at the beginning of the debate on changes to the Foreign Nationals Act. As a result, parliamentary meetings have been postponed for a few minutes, as people have been scurrying over the delays," Ásmundur Friðriksson, MP for the Independence Party reported in a post on his Facebook page.

Jón Gunnarsson, another Independence Party MP, stepped into action to assist the police in detaining the protesters.

Comment: See also:


Magnify

Germany: Car crashes into mall, mother and child seriously injured

berlin car
The car crashed into a woman with a stroller in front of a shopping center on Leipzigstrasse street in Berlin.

Both the mother and the child are currently in critical condition in the intensive care unit. No additional information is available at the moment.

According to BILD, the accident occurred at 10 a.m. local time. The police have not yet provided information about the incident. It is known only that the driver of the car also sustained serious injuries.

Comment: There's been a number of incidents in Germany of late: Germany: 4 shot dead overnight, soldier turns himself in; high school stabbing, 2 seriously injured

A week ago: Car ploughs into crowd in Poland leaving 17 people injured including children

And 2 weeks ago: Shocking video shows vehicle smashed into US hospital's ER, 1 dead, 5 injured


Footprints

Russia threatens to expel US diplomats

tracy
© Vladimir Astapkovich/SputnikUS Ambassador in Russia Lynne Tracy
Washington-backed NGOs in Russia are allegedly recruiting agents under the guise of educational and cultural projects...

US diplomats working in Russia who would seek to work with certain non-governmental organizations (NGOs) designated by Moscow as undesirable may be expelled from the country, the Foreign Ministry told Ambassador Lynne Tracy on Thursday.

The American envoy was summoned by the ministry to notify her about the changed legal status of three organizations that have the backing of the embassy she leads, the statement said. Russia says these NGOs are working on "projects of an anti-Russian nature, which are aimed at recruiting 'agents of influence' under the guise of educational and cultural exchanges."

Ambassador Tracy was issued a formal note, which demanded that Washington's embassy cut all ties with these outlawed groups. Among other things, its website and social media should remove all mentions of the three.

Comment: See also: