Welcome to Sott.net
Fri, 29 Oct 2021
The World for People who Think

Society's Child
Map

Arrow Down

Take a guess at how high the new minimum wage might be in Switzerland after today's vote (UPDATE: voters reject)

Zach Noble, AP
The Blaze
Sun, 18 May 2014 07:48 UTC
Voting
© Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images
A woman casts her ballot during a referendum on May 18, 2014 in Bulle, western Switzerland. Swiss voters are to decide in a referendum on May 18 whether to bring in the world’s highest minimum wage, offering each and every worker at least 25 dollars an hour. The Swiss will also be voting on a multi-billion-dollar deal to buy fighter jets from Sweden, and are almost certain to back measures to ban paedophiles from working with children.
UPDATE: 12:00 p.m. ET: It appears the vote will fail.
Swiss voters reject $25 minimum wage http://t.co/ZS6CUVWMxe pic.twitter.com/2HZ3cMT5MY
- Circa (@Circa) May 18, 2014
The idea of creating the world's highest minimum wage was criticized by government and business leaders as likely to drive Switzerland's high costs even higher.

The Federal Council was expected to hold a news conference shortly to announce official results.
      Read More...
Hourglass

Elderly Chinese committing suicide to avoid province's looming ban on burials

Damien Gayle
Mail Online
Mon, 26 May 2014 14:18 UTC
Man, stroller, smashed coffins
© www.dailymail.co.uk
Father and son stroll by a pile of smashed coffins.
Anhui Province, China, is to ban all burials after June 1.
Anyone who dies after the deadline will have to be cremated.
Officials smash up coffins to drive the point home.

Dozens of elderly Chinese people have been killing themselves to avoid a looming ban on burials.

The elderly suicides want to make sure their deaths are registered before a June 1 deadline, after which Anhui province authorities will close all cemeteries.

Anyone who dies after that date will have to be cremated because, authorities say, cemeteries are taking up too much space.

In order to drive the message home council officials have been visiting funeral parlours and smashing up coffins.

The draconian move has only hastened the rate of suicide as elderly people rush to guarantee one of the few remaining.

The new rules were published on April 1. Regional officials said: 'Before June 1 people can still consign their bodies for burial, but after that the only option offered will be cremation.'

In urban areas it has meant little change, but in rural areas the idea of cremation is abhorrent to many and there has been extreme opposition.

Comment: Statistics report China has an aging population with over nine million burials every year. It is running out of space as urban cemeteries are nearing capacity and prices are skyrocketing for burial plots. The term "grave slave" describes a generation that must work hard simply to afford the the burials of themselves, their parents and ongoing cemetery payments.

      Read More...
Airplane

Russian budget airline Dobrolet charges $60 for Crimea flights


RT
Tue, 27 May 2014 16:25 UTC
Dobrolet
© RIA Novosti / Press service of Dobrolet
Aeroflot's new budget airline subsidiary Dobrolet is to start flights to Crimea. The airline started offering seats from Moscow to Simferopol at $60 return.

Tickets went on sale on May 26, and within 24 hours 4,000 had been snapped up. The head of Aeroflot Vitaly Savelyev said Dobrolet will fly four times daily between the two cities.

The first flight is scheduled on June 11. The new airline plans to offer seats at least 15-20 percent lower than an average economy class fare with Aeroflot. Like many budget airlines extra services will come at a price, making the maximum fare $135, for the three hour flight.

Dobrolet was granted its operating certificate on May 19, and has available two Boeing 737 NG jets, each able to carry 189 passengers, and a single Russian built Sukhoi SSJ-100 Superjet. By the end of the year the company plans to be operating eight Boeing aircraft. Dobrolet is a wholly owned subsidiary of Aeroflot, which intends to invest $100 million in the venture in the next two years.

According to Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, by June 1 Crimea will have direct flights to 30 cities in Russia. Last year it was possible to reach the peninsula from just seven Russian cities. The number of flights will be increased to 330 which is triple the number in 2013.

In the beginning the low cost airline will only fly to Crimea. In March Medvedev asked Aeroflot to involve a cheap carrier in the peninsula transportation program. In the future Dobrolet intends to expand its network of flights to Krasnodar, St. Petersburg, Sochi and Kaliningrad by the end of the year.

Low cost airlines became a possibility in Russia after the State Duma allowed airlines to sell no-refundable tickets, to employ foreign pilots, and to charge for additional items such as food, and baggage handling.
      Read More...
Black Magic

Psychopathic pro-surfer/model proves she's a monster

Oliver Darcy
The Blaze
Sat, 17 May 2014 01:14 UTC
Image
© Via facebook
A Hawaii woman who bills herself as a professional surfer and model was arrested Wednesday night for attempted murder connected to a road rage incident.

Honolulu police say Jill Anjuli Hansen, 30, tried to kill an elderly woman in Waikiki by running her over with a vehicle, KHON-TV reported. Charges are currently pending.

The elderly woman, identified as 73-year-old Elizabeth Conklin, was hospitalized with serious injuries, including one to her head, after the 30-year-old drove a car into her.

Hansen was about to hit the woman a second time before a maintenance worker at the scene said he picked up a crowbar and smashed her windshield, causing the woman to abandon her car and flee the scene.
      Read More...
Pistol

Woman wins $650,000 settlement after trigger happy police officer shoots her during a drug raid in the wrong apartment

Travis Gettys
Raw Story
Tue, 27 May 2014 12:47 UTC
Image
© Shutterstock
A New York woman has reached a $650,000 settlement with Nassau County after a police officer accidentally shot her while investigating a drug case involving her downstairs neighbors.

Iyanna Davis was shot in the breast in 2010 after the officer mistakenly burst into her apartment during a drug investigation, reported Newsday.

The bullet then went through her abdomen and both thighs.

The officer said his assault rifle went off accidentally, and he was cleared of any wrongdoing by an internal police investigation.

Davis was pleased by the settlement and felt that justice was served, her attorney said.

She filed a civil rights suit in March against the county in federal court, and the settlement was reached six days into a trial and before jurors began deliberating.
      Read More...
Pistol

Myrtle Beach shootings leave 3 dead, 2 injured at Bermuda Sands Resort

Maya T. Prabhu
Myrtle Beach Online
Sun, 25 May 2014 12:01 UTC
Image
© Janet Blackmon Morgan
Myrtle Beach Police investigate where two bodies are on the walkway that's over a water park in front of Bermuda Sands Resort late Saturday, May 24, 2014
Those visiting Myrtle Beach for Memorial Day weekend said they were saddened to hear of the shootings Saturday night that killed three people and hospitalized two others.

Jamie Williams, 28, of Ladson, and Devonte Dantzler, 21, and Sandy Gaddis Barnwell, 22, both of Summerville were pronounced dead by Horry County deputy coroner Darris Fowler Saturday. Fowler said all three died from trauma to vital organs due to gunshot wounds sustained during a shooting at Bermuda Sands Resort on First Avenue North.

Thousands traveled to the Grand Strand to participate in Atlantic Beach BikeFest during Memorial Day weekend and some said the two shootings, which happened within hours of each other about seven blocks apart, will likely keep them from coming back.
      Read More...
Ambulance

40 killed after express train crashes into another in India


Daily Mail, UK
Mon, 26 May 2014 11:39 UTC
Image

Rescue workers attempt to make their way through the mangle Gorakhdham Express, which rammed into a goods train at Chureb station
* Gorakhpur Express was travelling at high speed and slammed on brakes

* Six cars derailed with one car with unreserved seating taking the brunt

* Although the car sits 72, they are often filled beyond capacity

An express train smashed into into a parked freight train in northern India today, killing at least 40 people and reducing cars to heaps of torn and twisted metal.

The Gorakhpur Express passenger train was travelling at high speed and slammed on its brakes in an attempt to stop, but hit the train sitting on the tracks near a railway station in Uttar Pradesh state, district magistrate Bharat Lal said.

Six of the cars on the express train derailed, with one car with unreserved seating taking the brunt of the impact and accounting for most of the 40 deaths so far counted, senior police officer Amrendra Sainger said.

      Read More...
Map

Germany world's 2nd immigration destination with spike of almost 40%


RT.com
Tue, 27 May 2014 09:12 UTC
Image
© Reuters/Stoyan Nenov
People put their luggage in a bus departing from Sofia's central bus station to London via Austria, Germany and France January 2, 2014.
Germany has become the second most popular immigration destination after the US, overtaking Canada and Australia. New figures by Germany's statistics reveal a spike by 13 percent over 2013 alone.

The latest provisional figures from the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) show the number of people moving to Germany jumping to 1,226,000. Over the same period, 789,000 people left the country.

The majority of those figures were non-German immigrants coming from European Union countries (727,000), with Poland as the top country of origin (189,000), Deutsche Welle reported.

The OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) provided the information on Germany becoming the second most popular country for immigrants, which represents "a boom - without any exaggeration," Thomas Liebig, an expert on international migration in the organization, told Reuters.

"No other OECD country experienced such a rise," he added.

Germany reached the second place in the 2012 already, according to the latest data. Three years earlier, it occupied the eighth place.

Annually, the number of migrants soared by 400,000 people, or 38 percent in 2012. Migrants from other European countries were the majority of the wave.

Most came from Eastern Europe, but increasing numbers were leaving the crisis-hit southern Europe (Spain, Portugal, Greece) for strong economy and stable labor market.
      Read More...
Wreath

30 self-defence fighters reported dead, following day of fierce fighting in Donetsk


RT
Tue, 27 May 2014 04:01 UTC
Around 30 self-defense fighters in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk may have been killed after Ukrainian troops stepped up their offensive in the region. Some of the casualties are a result of an attack on a truck carrying wounded rebels.
Truck overturned in Donetsk
© Unknown
A self-defense fighter in Donetsk told Reuters about 30 to 35 of his comrades had been killed in nearly 24 hours of fighting with Ukrainian forces.

Earlier, the people's governor of the Donetsk Region, Pavel Gubarev, wrote on Facebook, that 35 self-defense fighters were killed and 15 injured.

An overnight attack by Ukrainian troops on a truck carrying wounded rebels reportedly accounts for a portion of the casualties.

Footage by LifeNews shows a truck full of dead bodies. Representatives of the self-defense squads say they cannot yet give the names of those killed; the process of identification has only just began.

"They were wounded. The car was driving them from a battlefield," a masked representative of the self-defense forces in Donetsk told LifeNews. "First snipers shot the driver, then they fired point-blank at the rest from a shoulder-launcher. The survivors were then gunned down by Right Sector militants - no one in the truck survived."

Comment: The fighting is likely to continue for some time as the Kiev junta appears adamant to continue the slaughter. This statement is from Tuesday morning at 8:53 GMT:
Government troops will go on with the military operation until not a single self-defense fighter "is left on the territory of Ukraine," said Vice Premier Vitaly Yarema, as cited by RIA Novosti.


      Read More...
Gold Coins

Getting worried? Now Austria demands an audit of its offshore held gold

Tyler Durden
Zerohedge.com
Tue, 27 May 2014 02:02 UTC
Austrian gold coin
© Unknown
First it was Germany, now another AAA-rated European country is starting to get concerned about its hard assets.

Overnight Bloomberg reported that following in Bundesbank's footsteps, Austria will audit its gold reserves located in the UK, which represent 80% of its total gold holdings. This gold reserve reviews held at Bank of England in London will be first conducted by external auditors, Christian Gutleder, a spokesman for the Austrian central bank, says via telephone.

As a reminder, Austria held 80% of its roughly 280 tons of gold in U.K., according to last annual report.

Gutleder explained that the Central bank has checked its reserves regularly in the past, adding that gold reserves haven't changed since 2007. Which begs the question: why check them now then?

According to the official explanation that review comes after euro-skeptic Freedom Party demanded more transparency, repatriation of reserves. Perhaps it is time to rename the Euroskeptic party into the "we doubt our gold is where you say it is" skeptics. A better explanation was provided by the Austrian Trend magazine, which said that "the measure is seen as a consequence of growing public pressure. There is a rising disbelief among Austrians about the existence of the gold."
      Read More...
Amazon Smile
Revolt! T-shirts