Russia should be ready in winter for a second wave of migration of refugees from Ukraine, and not only from the country's embattled southeast, Russia's human rights ombudswoman Ella Pamfilova told Russian government daily Rossiiskaya Gazeta during a business lunch.

Pamfilova said that "the first wave of refugees is now on a decline as people are inspired with a possible truce".

"But there will be winter, which will be hard to live through in affected Ukrainian territories. So we should be ready for the second wave of migration and not only from the southeast of Ukraine. We should also not forget that many refugees who arrived earlier remain in Russia," she said.

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said in early September Russia has had to pay some 1 billion rubles ($25.3 million at current rates) for the stay of Ukrainian refugees on its territory.

Unprecedented wave of refugees

Pamfilova said Russia was not ready for the unprecedented wave of refugees from the neighboring country, but that aid to the people was provided promptly thanks to joint efforts by officials and ordinary people.

"I don't remember such a burst of civic activism... People got involved in work jointly with the authorities; businessmen, volunteers, ordinary people who decided to house refugees united their efforts. Russia has lived through a unique kind of unity in this connection," she said.

Pamfilova said regional human rights ombudspersons are involved in constant monitoring of the situation with refugees, and she said she plans to submit a package of proposals to the Russian government taking into account the monitoring results.

Western selectiveness

The ombudswoman sharply criticized selectiveness of Western media in their coverage of the situation in Ukraine's southeast. According to Pamfilova, "independent" European media "are writing about Iraq, Syria and Palestine" but for some reason "fail to notice the death of civilians in Ukraine's southeast."

"Why such selectiveness? Instead of demonstrative breadth of independent views, [they are] only following the order to label Russia accusing it of everything," she said.

"Russia has things to be criticized for, but [critics] should have the moral right to do so. I have the utmost disappointment and I don't hide it from my Western colleagues when I meet with them," the ombudswoman said.

Speaking about the work of human rights organizations in the world in general, Pamfilova said many institutions under the United Nations aegis have yielded to the situation and stopped providing information objectively.

"The powerful human rights billy club is masterfully used to defend someone's economic and political interests. I can't name a single institution in the world which would be absolutely objective and unbiased," she said.

"The values of human rights, understood in a certain way, are imposed by force: you must, you have to. But different countries have different history, culture and mentality," Pamfilova said.

"When a country with a certain history, traditions, culture and religion is censured for the absence of same-sex marriages, people have a feeling that the entire system of European values makes that the cornerstone," she said. "The fundamental rights are played down at that, and people have a natural rejection."

Ever fall behind on yard work? This East Tennessee woman did -- and now she's headed to jail.

Karen Holloway was cited by Lenoir City officials for not keeping up her yard.

She says this all started over the summer, when the city sent her a citation, claiming her yard wasn't properly maintained.

"With my husband going to school and working full time, me with my job, with one vehicle, we were trying our best," she said.

Holloway, who has two kids still at home, says she'll be the first to admit this yard needed some attention. But she feels the city has gone too far by imposing jail time.

"[The bushes and trees] were overgrown. But that's certainly not a criminal offense," she said.

Amidst the rampant, brutal corruption of American police departments today, another department decided to cross the 'thin blue line' this week, signing a petition to fire their chief of police who has a long record of power abuse.

Lt. Mark Byrd was a vocal figure in the creation of the petition and movement against the chief of the Asheville Police Department in North Carolina.

He says he was retaliated against by the chief because his wife sued the department over sexual harassment.

The chief who is being held accountable for being corrupt by his department, William Anderson, faced previous accusations of racism in Florida, and has brought controversy wherever he went, including Greenville, NC and an unnamed city in Florida.

In the petition against Chief William Anderson, the 44 officers agreed,

Asheville is not best served by its current police department leadership and request that these issues be addressed.

The federal minimum wage of $7.25 is now worth 30 percent less than it was in the 1960s, after adjusting for inflation. It is quite literally a poverty wage - if you support a child, working full-time at the federal minimum will land you $650 below the federal poverty line; supporting two kids will put you more than $4,000 beneath it.

We've noted before that low-wage employers shift some of their labor costs onto the backs of taxpayers by encouraging their workers to apply for public benefits. These employers are the true "welfare queens," their profits indirectly subsidized by the public, which allows them to keep prices artificially low. We've argued in the past that this is one of several reasons why conservatives who oppose spending on the social safety net should favor raising the minimum to a point where workers can get by on their own labor.

Iraqi officials say three car bombings in the revered Shiite shrine city of Karbala have killed at least 16 people.

A police officer said Monday that the explosives-laden cars were parked in commercial areas and parking lots near government offices. He says 41 others were wounded in the explosions.

A medical official confirmed the casualty figures. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to talk to media.

Karbala is home to two revered Shiite saints and is located about 90 kilometers (55 miles) south of Baghdad.

The attacks came hours after a suicide bomber blew himself up among Shiite worshippers as they were leaving a mosque in a commercial area in central Baghdad, killing at least 17 people

You ever have that nightmare that you're a teenager and you find yourself at school naked?

Remember how relieved you felt to wake up and find out it was just a nightmare?

Well, that nightmare came true last Thursday for Oregon teen Sara Rue at Salem's Roberts Annex alternative high school.

Rue told KATU News that she thought she was having a panic attack as the teacher was confronting another student on an unrelated matter. Rue got up to leave the classroom and remove herself from the stressful situation and the teacher began grabbing her aggressively to keep her in the room.

CBS is making a show that's basically The Birds, but instead of birds attacking humans, it's all of the animals across the globe attacking humans. All of them.

CBS has ordered 13 episode of the TV adaptation of James Patterson's totally wacky Zoo. The book is centered around an outbreak of organized animal attacks. The animals know something, and they're pissed! These are coordinated attacks against the human species, which just sounds so ridiculously terrible I cannot wait to watch it every single day. Here's the synopsis from Amazon:

Ramalla-- A young Palestinian girl who was struck by an Israeli settler vehicle earlier Sunday has succumbed to her wounds, medics told Ma'an.

Einas Khalil, five, died after being hit by a car driven by an Israeli settler near the central West Bank town of Sinjil, medical sources at Palestine Medical Complex in Ramallah said.

The girl and young Nilin Asfour were walking on the main road near the village when they were hit, and were taken to the hospital in Ramallah where their wounds were described as serious.

Einas passed away hours later.

Residents of Sinjil accused the settler of deliberately hitting the girls.

Israeli police arrived at the scene shortly after the incident and opened an investigation into whether it was deliberate, locals said.

Over 500,000 Israeli settlers live in settlements in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, in contravention of international law.

A thirty-meter black-blue-red flag of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) was hoisted on Sunday in central Donetsk on the occasion of one of the first national holidays, the Flag Day.

"Regrettably, we have too few holidays now, but this holiday we will remember for years to come. Each of the occupied cities - Slavyansk, Mariupol, Kramatorsk, and others - will host our flag sooner or later," DPR Prime Minister Alexander Zakharchenko said.

According to a TASS correspondent, about 2,000 people gathered on Sunday in Donetsk's central Lenin Square. Representatives from various DPR districts carried in a giant flag measuring 30 by 14 meters made by residents of all towns of the republic. Denis Yurchenko, a bronze medalist of the Olympic Games in Beijing, and several other city residents made a number of final symbolic stitches. On a signal from Zakharchenko, the flag was hoisted on the facade of one of the buildings surrounding the square.

"We have withstood much and are yet to withstand much. We are a united people and we shall overcome anything," Zakharchenko said. "We will make our city better, we will restore everything that was destroyed and will live in the most beautiful city - let our enemies be envious."

No violations were reported during the festivities.

A controversial artwork in the centre of Paris said to resemble a giant green sex toy was apparently vandalised overnight Friday, after critics decried the 80-foot installation as a "humiliation" for the French capital.

Called "Tree", the piece by US artist Paul McCarthy was erected in Paris's upmarket Place Vendôme on Thursday as part of the FIAC international art festival which begins next week.
The inflatable artwork is intended to represent a Christmas tree, according to McCarthy, but has caused outrage among some due to its resemblance to an anal plug sex toy, prompting calls for city authorities to remove it.

Feeling has been so strong that McCarthy, 69, has said he was slapped three times in the face by a passer-by as the artwork was unveiled.

Some angry Paris residents now seem to have taken matters into their own hands, with photos posted on Twitter overnight Friday showing the installation lying on its side and looking limp and deflated after apparently being vandalised.