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Eye 2

'Pale and listless, impossible to teach, staff paying for basic necessities': Documentary Children of Austerity exposes reality of life in Britain

UK PM Theresa May axes unit devoted to preventing child poverty
© GettyLatest figures showed 3.9m children - one in four - in the UK are growing up in relative poverty
"Pale and listless" children are the real-life victims of Tory welfare cuts, the president of the National Union of Teachers says in a newly released Redfish documentary.

Under the Tories, who have been in power for eight years, it's now estimated that 30 percent of children - 4.1 million minors - are now growing up in poverty.

A UK teachers union reported earlier this year that nearly 90 percent of teachers find it "all but impossible for them to teach," and often have to provide their pupils with basic necessities such as food, clothes and sanitary items.

Comment: The UK economy was failing before but it went into freefall with the implementation of austerity. Lest we forget, back in 2007/8, the big financial institutions lost their capital gambling in the markets ponzi-schemes and, amid warnings of worldwide economic collapse, the public purse was emptied to bail them out. It is that debt that was shouldered by the public that was then used as excuse for austerity.

Overtime a government driven propaganda campaign has brainwashed swathes of people that, actually, it's 'benefit-scroungers' who are the cause for the country's problems. The fact that even those in work are still earning below poverty wages have to resort to food banks or borrowing money from predatory lenders just for the basic necessities is lost on a detached elite who, while freezing salaries for nurses and doctors, felt it right to award themselves another pay rise, taking the total to £11,000 in just 3 years.


Play

'They're out to kill gay football fans': UK tabloids ramp up Russia World Cup fear campaign

Football hooligans
© Igor Kritskiy / Global Look Press
British tabloids have gone into overdrive, throwing all their weight into fear mongering in the lead up to the World Cup. Papers are now claiming that Russian hooligans are threatening to kill gay and transgender fans.

RT's Anastasia Churkina detailed some of the more outrageous stories published by the British press. "We've seen headlines talk about things such as 'Russia about to unleash its hooligans,' how the police are 'thuggish' in Russia, how there is a threat of being 'whipped by Cossack horsemen,' as well as talk of racism and hackers breaking into your phone through wifi, while you're there as a fan," she said.

Despite the British tabloid's best attempt at undermining the World Cup host nation, UK head of Football Policing Mark Roberts previously said that he has faith in Russia's ability to host a safe and enjoyable event.

Pocket Knife

Train knife attack: One man killed, policewoman and passenger injured in Flensburg, Germany

Police ribbon
© Lukas Barth
A man has been shot dead by police after he attacked a person on a train with a knife and then injured a policewoman on a train near Flensburg station in northern Germany.


The man allegedly took out his weapon at around 7 pm local time (1700 UTC) while on board the fast train that had traveled to Flensburg via Cologne and Hamburg, according to Bild.

Airplane

Aircraft window cracks in violent turbulence forcing emergency landing in China

China airplane
© tnk_b2727 / Instagram
Frightened passengers of a Beijing Capital Airlines flight said their aircraft was forced to make an emergency landing after one of its windows cracked amid violent turbulence.

About an hour after flight JD421 departed the Chinese city of Hangzhou on Tuesday, en route to Nha Trang in Vietnam, the Airbus 321 experienced unexpected turbulence. The aircraft was affected so hard it was forced to return for an emergency landing.

"After flying for more than an hour, the plane suddenly bumped violently," a passenger identified as Mr. Zheng told one of the local newspapers. "After so many plane rides, I have never encountered such severe air jolts. Many children in the cabin were frightened and crying."

Passengers reported seeing a "crack on the windshield" after the pilot announced that the plane suffered a malfunction. The airline, however, later stated that its plane was forced to turn around because of a "general aircraft failure," and that a crack was actually in the porthole outside of the cockpit.

Capital Airlines provided a 400 yuan ($62) compensation to each of the 211 passengers before flying them out on an evening flight.

Tuesday's incident happened just weeks after Sichuan Airlines 3U8633 made an emergency landing in southwest China, due to a broken cockpit window that sucked a co-pilot halfway out of the aircraft at 32,000 feet. Despite the terrifying experience, the co-pilot and another crew member suffered only minor injuries.


Comment: Chinese pilot lands flight after window falls off, copilot nearly sucked out of plane
"The windshield cracked suddenly and gave a huge bang. I looked aside and found half of the co-pilot's body was already outside the window. Fortunately his seat belt was fastened,"



Comment: A lot of extreme turbulence is being reported of late. From Fasten your seat belt - severe turbulence is on the rise:
"It is predicted there will be more and more incidents of severe clear-air turbulence, which typically comes out of the blue with no warning, occurring in the near future as climate change takes its effect in the stratosphere," Dr Paul Williams, a Royal Society research fellow at Reading University, said last week.
Has something changed in the stratosphere? See also:


Meteor

Instant Karma: Big game hunter gored to death by wild buffalo moments after killing another member of its herd

African buffalo
© RexAfrican buffalo can weigh up to 1,000 kg

A big game hunter was reportedly gored to death by a wild buffalo moments after he had killed another member of its herd.

Professional hunter Claude Kleynhans had been leading a group on an expedition along the banks of South Africa's Levubu River in the northern province of Limpopo.

The 54-year-old and his party had shot and killed a buffalo and were preparing to load it into their vehicle when they were blindsided by another member of the herd, the Bosveld Review reported.

Another guide ran back to the hunting lodge to seek help, but the animal's horn reportedly pierced Mr Kleynhans' femoral artery - killing him almost instantly.

Arrow Up

Russia's retail business likely to see a boom with increased tourism

Moscow
Hard times in Russia do teach happy economic lessons in sometimes-painful ways.

Not very long ago in Russia the towns with populations of over one million were the regional equivalent of Home Depot, Tedesco, Walmart and IKEA all rolled into one. People would takes days off to travel from the outlying towns and villages to shop in the cities for just about everything that was simply unavailable to them locally.

This of course changed, and over time and throughout the first decade of this millennium the construction of hypermarkets and planned retail trade centers spread like a wildfire throughout the country. In most cases, the result was "cookie-cutter" retail. A hypermarket in Vladivostok, Ekaterinburg St. Petersburg, or Moscow contained pretty much the same retailers and stocks with prices varying to reflect shipping costs to deliver the goods to shelves.

This replication, or standardization, was seen not only cross-country, but also increasingly cross-town. Sameness and standardization allowed for reduced overheads on the one hand, but played into the strongest aspects and capabilities of e-commerce on the other hand - a conflict conundrum. Hypermarkets and malls became boring in the eyes of many Russian consumers, and increasingly seen as inconvenient.

Comment: And on the manufacturing, trade and big industry front there's this:


Bizarro Earth

Gaza in despair: Fathi Harb burnt himself to death in protest. Will the world even notice?

Fathi Harb suicide gaza
© via Social MediaFathi Harb
Fathi Harb should have had something to live for, not least the imminent arrival of a new baby. But last week the 21-year-old extinguished his life in an inferno of flames in central Gaza.

It is believed to be the first example of a public act of self-immolation in the enclave. Harb doused himself in petrol and set himself alight on a street in Gaza City shortly before dawn prayers during the holy month of Ramadan.

In part, Harb was driven to this terrible act of self-destruction out of despair.

After a savage, decade-long Israeli blockade by land, sea and air, Gaza is like a car running on fumes. The United Nations has repeatedly warned that the enclave will be uninhabitable within a few years.

Comment:


Star of David

Proposed ban on filming IDF soldiers called 'absurd', meant to limit freedom of press and speech in Israel

palestinian woman
The proposed ban on filming of IDF soldiers is "absurd" and means the "end of democracy," experts told RT, adding that the images showing abuse by Israeli soldiers show "how morally corrosive the occupation" has become.

The proposal, lobbied for by Israeli right-wing politicians, states that anyone who "filmed, photographed, and/or recorded soldiers in the course of their duties, with the intention of undermining the spirit of IDF soldiers and residents of Israel, shall be liable to five years imprisonment," Israeli media reported.

The draft bill accuses human rights groups, including B'Tselem, Machsom Watch Women, and Breaking the Silence, which repeatedly filmed the abuses committed by Israeli soldiers, of waiting for any IDF activity "that can be presented in biased and tendentious form."

Snakes in Suits

How Italy ended up with a pro-austerity fmr IMF director it never voted for as its PM

Carlo Cottarelli
© Reuters / Tony GentileFormer senior International Monetary Fund (IMF) official Carlo Cottarelli
Italy's March elections were followed by months of negotiations, which ended with the president's move to block the will of people and pick an ex-IMF director as the new interim PM. Let's recap how it happened.

Improbable as it first seemed, a League-Five Star Movement coalition was formed nearly three months after the country voted. The elections of March 4 resulted in two winners - the center-right coalition led by the League that, collectively with Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia, won 37 percent; and the Five Star Movement, which won nearly 33 percent.

The unlikely allies had contrasting missions during their electoral campaigns. While the League vowed to staunchly fight to ease taxation and introduce new measures to deal with illegal migrants, the Movement gave an impression of leaning more to the left. Widely supported in the south of the country, Naples-native Di Maio was expected to deal with some of the most painful issues, such as unemployment and sloppy local government. With their missions framed differently, the two parties did not immediately begin talks.

Brick Wall

Access denied: RT journalist barred from attending Macron press conference

macron
An RT journalist has been barred from attending a conference hosted by Emmanuel Macron in Elysee palace. The reporter was told that the president "was clear" about RT: access for the channel's staff is denied.

Kyrill Kotikov, working for RT France, was stopped by security at the gates of the palace where Macron was due to give a speech at the international conference on Libya on Tuesday.

Kotikov had the conversation recorded. "The president was clear about Russia Today," one of the officers is heard saying after journalist's documents were checked. Kotikov was carrying a press card as instructed by the palaces' press office.