Society's ChildS

Dollar

US, New York: Ex-TSA Agents Admit to Stealing Cash from JFK Bag


The Wall Street Journal
Thu, 27 Oct 2011 05:13 UTC
money
© unknown
Two former Transportation Security Administration officers based at John F. Kennedy Airport have admitted to stealing $40,000 in cash from a checked bag.

The Queens District Attorney's Office says 44-year-old Coumar Persad, of Queens, and 31-year-old Davon Webb, of the Bronx, pleaded guilty on Thursday to grand larceny, obstructing governmental administration and official misconduct. They each face six months in jail and five years' probation at their Jan. 10 sentencing.

Authorities say the two TSA officers swiped the cash after spotting it in a piece of luggage while it was being X-rayed. The cash was recovered.

An attorney for Persad said his client understands he made a mistake and wishes to move on with his life.

Source: The Associated Press
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Bad Guys

Blair & Bush To Be Tried For War Crimes in Kuala Lumpur


Wakeup World
Thu, 20 Oct 2011 00:00 UTC
Bush Blair
© Unknown
On November 19-22, 2011, the trial of George W Bush (former U.S. President) and Anthony L Blair (former British Prime Minister) will be held in Kuala Lumpur. This is the first time that war crimes charges will be heard against the two former heads of state in compliance with proper legal process.

Charges are being brought against the accused by the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission (KLWCC) following the due process of the law. The Commission, having received complaints from war victims in Iraq in 2009, proceeded to conduct a painstaking and an in-depth investigation for close to two years and in 2011, constituted formal charges on war crimes against Bush, Blair and their associates.

The Iraq invasion in 2003 and its occupation had resulted in the death of 1.4 million Iraqis. Countless others had endured torture and untold hardship. The cries of these victims have thus far gone unheeded by the international community. The fundamental human right to be heard has been denied to them.

As a result, the KLWCC had been established in 2008 to fill this void and act as a peoples' initiative to provide an avenue for such victims to file their complaints and let them have their day in a court of law.

The first charge against George W Bush and Anthony L Blair is for Crimes Against Peace wherein:

The Accused persons had committed Crimes against Peace, in that the Accused persons planned, prepared and invaded the sovereign state of Iraq on 19 March 2003 in violation of the United Nations Charter and international law.
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Info

US, California: Rebecca Zahau's Body to Be Exhumed For New Autopsy; Family Doesn't Buy Cops' Findings That Death Was Suicide

James King
Phoenix New Times
Fri, 28 Oct 2011 09:34 UTC
Rebecca Zahau
© unknownRebecca Zahau's family doesn't believe her death was a suicide.
The body of Rebecca Zahau, the girlfriend of Jonah Shacknai, the CEO of the Scottsdale-based pharmaceutical company Medicis, will be exhumed so a private pathologist can conduct a second autopsy to try and determine whether her bizarre death at a California mansion was a suicide or a homicide.

Read all about Zahau's strange death here.

Police in San Diego ruled Zahau's strange hanging death to be a suicide last month, but the 32-year-old's family doesn't believe she could have killed herself, and has asked Pennsylvania-based pathologist Doctor Cyril Wecht to conduct a second autopsy, despite the California Attorney General's decision to not review the case.

Zahau's body was found by Shacknai's brother in July, just days after the CEO's son, Max, was rushed to a hospital in critical condition after falling down a flight of stairs in the mansion. Zahau was caring for the boy at the time of the fall.

Max Shacknai later died from his injuries. Police suspect Zahau killed herself because she felt guilty over Max's death.

"Were these deaths the result of criminal conduct? Was Max's death a homicide? The answer is no," San Diego County Sheriff Bill Gore said at a press conference last month. "It was a tragic accident. Was Rebecca's death a homicide? Again the answer is no. It was a suicide ... These deaths were not the result of any criminal acts."
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Heart - Black

US, Connecticut: Mom Says Son Convicted of Brutal Home Invasion Killings Was Raped as Teen


The New York Post
Fri, 28 Oct 2011 01:01 UTC
Image
© The Associated PressJoshua Komisarjevsky
The mother of a Connecticut man facing a possible death sentence for a brutal fatal home invasion broke down crying Friday as she told jurors her son was raped as a teenager and described her frantic efforts to save him after his behavior changed dramatically.

Jude Komisarjevsky said her son Joshua had run away when he was nearly 15 and when he came home, he looked transformed.

"There was tremendous pain in his expression," she said. "His eyes were absolutely dead."

His mother, testifying during the sentencing phase of her son's trial, said she didn't know at the time what happened, but noticed her son grew angry and had satanic symbols in his room along with the words "death, die and suicide." She said she learned years later from her son - when he was in prison - that he was raped by someone he trusted.

Joshua Komisarjevsky was hospitalized a short time later after he set a vacant gas station on fire. The psychiatric hospital recommended he be medicated, but his mother said she was concerned about the drug's effects and that her son would abuse it.
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Che Guevara

US: Protestors take to streets of NYC in show of Solidarity for Scott Olsen

Mark Duell & Hannah Roberts
Daily Mail, UK
Fri, 28 Oct 2011 12:55 UTC
Image
© APNew York: Occupy Wall Street protesters marched in support of their fellow campaigners in Oakland after word spread of two-tour Iraq veteran Scott Olsen, who was left critically injured after being hit in the face by a police tear gas canister
Why did police officer fire gas canister into crowd trying to help injured Iraq veteran? Protesters take to the streets of New York and Oakland in solidarity after Marine was left in critical condition
  • Ex-Marine Scott Olsen, 24, of Daly City, California, served in Iraq in 2006 and 2007 - and was hit in California protests
  • Anger over Oakland police 'brutality' fans across America as protesters march in solidarity with Olsen on Wednesday
  • Occupy Oakland activists trying to reclaim camp they were in for 15 days - until police evicted them early on Tuesday
  • More trouble on Tuesday at 5pm when 400 people marched towards Frank Ogawa Plaza, which police surrounded
  • Conditions in the Oakland camp were thought to have become unsavoury as tented town became semi-permanent
  • Some protesters threw turquoise and red paint at riot police officers last night and others reportedly threw rocks
  • Meanwhile in Atlanta, Georgia, dozens of protesters were evicted from a park and 53 were arrested by police
Protesters took to the streets of New York and Oakland in force last night as anger boiled over after a two tour Iraq veteran was left seriously injured when he was blasted in the face by a police tear gas canister.

War hero Scott Olsen, 24, was hospitalised in a serious condition after he suffered a fractured skull during a march with other protesters in the Californian city on Tuesday night.

Questions were today being asked of how police handled the situation after videos emerged of an officer throwing a gas canister into the crowd after they had rushed to help Mr Olsen, who was on the floor.
Image
© APCalifornia: Protesters returned to the streets of Oakland for a second night of marching. The police have been accused of unnecessary brutality after officers fired tear gas into the crowds during Tuesday night's protest
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Red Flag

Man opens fire with automatic weapon in terrorist attack outside US Embassy in Bosnia

Sabina Niksic
The Associated Press
Fri, 28 Oct 2011 00:00 UTC
Image
© The Associated Press / Amel EmricAn unidentified gunman stands in the center of the street in Sarajevo, Bosnia on Friday, Oct. 28, 2011 at a street in front of the U.S. embassy. An unidentified man shot several rounds at pedestrians in downtown Sarajevo on Friday and injured at least one officer before police special forces took him down. For at least 30 minutes the man stood at a street in front of the U.S. embassy in Sarajevo and shot around from an automatic rifle.
A man opened fire with an automatic weapon Friday in what authorities called a terrorist attack on the U.S. Embassy in Bosnia. A policeman and the gunman were wounded, but the embassy said none of its employees was hurt.

Sarajevo Mayor Alija Behmen said the gunman "got off a tram with a Kalashnikov and started shooting at the American Embassy." Witnesses told Bosnian television that the man urged pedestrians to move away, saying he was targeting only the embassy.

One police officer guarding the building was wounded before police surrounded the gunman. After a 30-minute standoff, the sound of a single shot echoed and AP video showed the shooter slump to the ground.

Police arrested the wounded man - who one of Bosnia's three presidents said is a foreigner - and took him away in an ambulance as pedestrians cowered behind buildings and vehicles. Hospital spokeswoman Biljana Jandric told The Associated Press the gunman had a minor wound to his leg, and would spend the night at the hospital before being released into police custody.

In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said several bullets struck the outside wall of the embassy, but that all embassy personnel were safe. She said the wounded police officer had been assigned to protect the embassy. Ambassador Patrick Moon expressed his gratitude for the swift response by the police.
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Family

Commonwealth heads agree to update 300-year-old royal succession rules

Bruce Cheadle
The Canadian Press
Fri, 28 Oct 2011 10:31 UTC
Prince William, Kate Middleton
© Allie Merriam
It's taken 300 years, but the old boys club of royal primogeniture has finally been shelved.

Sixteen Commonwealth "realms" that still maintain the Queen as their head of state agreed Friday to change the rules of succession that have favoured boys over girls since the 17th century.

The rules of primogeniture - which determine the constitutional figurehead of Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia, among others - were belatedly dragged into the 21st century by dint of the massive popularity of Prince William and his wife Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge.

"In future, the order of succession should be determined simply by the order of birth," British Prime Minister David Cameron said in announcing the agreement at a Commonwealth leaders' summit. "And we've agreed to introduce this for all descendents from (Charles) the Prince of Wales."

"Put simply, if the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were to have a little girl, that girl would one day be our queen."
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Yoda

Gaddafi on democracy, dictators and world peace

NIall Bradley
Sott.net
Fri, 28 Oct 2011 12:56 UTC
Muammar Gaddafi was supposedly killed by a baying mob last week, having survived successive bombing raids on his residences in Libya by NATO, whose rationale was that Gaddafi was "threatening to kill his own people."

But what do we really know about the man who defied Western criticism and propaganda for over 40 years and transformed Libya from the poorest nation on Earth into Africa's richest?

This interview he gave to Al Jazeera in 2009 during his visit to the UN in New York suggests that far from being an evil, rambling madman, Gaddafi is (or was) one of the few world leaders who actually knows what he's talking about.

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Ambulance

Hurt protester Scott Olsen was provoking no one

Justin Berton & Will Kane
San Francisco Chronicle
Fri, 28 Oct 2011 12:36 UTC
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© Jay Finneburgh/APIraq War veteran Scott Olsen lays on the ground bleeding from a head wound after being struck by a by a projectile during an Occupy Wall Street protest in Oakland,Calif.
Oakland - Scott Olsen, a 24-year-old Marine who served two tours of duty in Iraq, stood calmly in front of a police line as tear gas canisters that officers shot into the Occupy Oakland protest Tuesday night whizzed past his head.

"He was standing perfectly still, provoking no one," said Raleigh Latham, an Oakland filmmaker shooting footage of the confrontation between police and hundreds of protesters at 14th Street and Broadway. "If something didn't hit him directly in the face, then it went off close to his head and knocked him down."

The something was a projectile that apparently came from police lines, fractured Olsen's skull and put him in Highland General Hospital. Doctors upgraded his condition Thursday from critical to fair, and said they expect him to make a full recovery.

His parents flew in from Wisconsin and spent Thursday at his bedside. When they arrived, Olsen "just blossomed," said Highland's chief of surgery, Dr. Alden Harken.

Olsen's injury added to the national attention focused on Occupy Oakland in the aftermath of the repeated police tear-gassing of protesters Tuesday. In Las Vegas, protesters projected a photo of the Marine in uniform onto the corrugated-metal side of a building at their camp, the Associated Press reported. Vigils for Olsen were planned at Occupy sites in other cities.
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Handcuffs

US: Northern California Man Arrested For Animal Cruelty; Horse Rescue Foundation In Need Of Help


CBS News, Sacramento
Thu, 27 Oct 2011 21:24 UTC
A Northern California animal rescue group may need some rescuing of its own after helping save dozens of horses in what some are describing as the worst cases of animal cruelty they've witnessed.


Volunteers from The Grace Foundation in El Dorado Hills were not prepared for the conditions it found on a Northern California ranch in April, where the carcasses of 25 horses littered the property, many just the skeletal remains.

"It was just a graveyard for horses," said Beth DeCaprio of The Grace Foundation. "It was the worst case I had ever seen."
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