Society's Child

Barcelona sees fierce clashes as pro-independence demonstrators & police face off

RT
Sun, 27 Oct 2019 19:04 UTC

barcelona protests catalonia independence

© Reutes/Sergio Perez
A Catalan pro-independence demonstrator throws a fence into a fire during a protest against police action in Barcelona, Spain, October 26, 2019.

Chaotic scenes played out in downtown Barcelona after supporters of jailed Catalonia independence leaders set off towards the national police HQ, throwing projectiles at riot officers who responded with batons and foam bullets.

Around 10,000 people swarmed the streets of Barcelona, the capital of Spain's autonomous region, on Saturday, in a pro-independence protest called by the CDR (Committees for the Defense of the Republic).

The demonstrators set off to march towards the National Police headquarters, but were met by hundreds of police in full riot gear. The protest, which began around 7:30pm local time, quickly turned violent as demonstrators began hurling objects such as eggs, plastic balls, and rocks at police armed with batons and shields.

Comment: Not every Catalonian thinks independence for the province is a good idea. Counter-protesters also held demonstrations:

Less than a day after tens of thousands of pro-independence protesters faced off with riot police on the streets of Barcelona, masses of demonstrators took to the streets voicing their opposition to autonomous Catalonia.
© Reuters / Sergio Perez
Anti-independence demonstrators march in Barcelona
Catalonians opposed to independence marched on Sunday, waving the Spanish flag and calling for national unity.

Police say 80,000 people showed up, a fraction of the number that pro-independence protests have drawn over the last two weeks.

However, Catalonia's 7.5 million people remain divided on the region's future, with roughly half supporting secession and half opposed. The pro-independence side remain angered at the Spanish government's crackdown on the 2017 referendum, which saw police raiding polling stations, beating voters, and seizing ballot boxes.

Liberals outing Trump donors as 'racists' could lead to full-blown civil war

Robert Bridge
RT
Fri, 25 Oct 2019 16:10 UTC

It would be difficult to name a dirtier political trick than calling opponents 'racist' and publicly disclosing their names. Is this mere dress rehearsal for the 2020 US election, or something far worse?

Today in America, when a sizable segment of the population is suffering from the acute, long-term effects of Trump Derangement Syndrome, even the simple act of supporting a political candidate - especially if the candidate's name happens to be Donald Trump - can make a person not only feel like a criminal, but treated like one as well. And that's not mere hyperbole.

Consider the following. In the US, when sexual predators are released back into the general population after serving out their prison sentence, they are required to register themselves in a state data bank. This is no dating site. Its purpose is to inform Americans if a potentially dangerous individual will be residing in their neighborhood, possibly in the vicinity of their children. This is the sort of blacklist most Americans could probably agree with.

But what about a blacklist made up of American voters who have had their names and addresses dumped into the public realm for the 'crime' of donating money to the Trump campaign? When it is remembered that supporting political parties and candidates with cash is a democratic form of 'free speech', it sounds almost too incredible to imagine.

Sorry Sweden, those hand grenade attacks are not an 'image' problem

Graham Dockery
RT
Sun, 27 Oct 2019 06:23 UTC

Stockholm was shaken by three explosions in one night last week. But the blasts didn't even make headlines. With violence rising, the country's government seems more concerned with downplaying the problem instead of tackling it.

Three explosions in one night would be front page news in any first-world city. But when Stockholm reverberated to multiple blasts in one night last week, national broadcaster SVT's nightly broadcast was silent, relegating the news to its web coverage instead. One of the targets, a Syrian Orthodox church, had already been bombed twice in the past year.

But in Sweden, explosions no longer make the news. In 2018 there were 162 bombings reported to police, and 93 reported in the first five months of this year, 30 more than during the same period in 2018. The level of attacks is "extreme in a country that is not at war," Crime Commissioner Gunnar Appelgren told SVT last year.

Comment: See also:

It's the Russians...again! This time meddling in Chile, warns US diplomat

RT
Sat, 26 Oct 2019 20:02 UTC

Guess who's stirring mass anti-government protests in Chile? Anybody? That's right, it's the Russians, at least according to Washington's chief Latin American diplomat.

Speaking before a congressional committee hearing on Wednesday, State Department diplomat Michael Kozak suggested that "foreign actors" were stoking protests in Chile. Pressed on the statement by Latin-American news agency EFE on Friday, Kozak elaborated further.

"We have identified on social networks false accounts that emanate from Russia, which are people who pretend to be Chilean, but in reality all the message they are doing is trying to undermine all Chilean institutions and society," he was quoted on Friday by Chilean media.

Comment: See also:

London Times op-ed parrots Bill Browder's anti-Russia lies

Lucy Komisar
The Komisar Scoop
Fri, 25 Oct 2019 17:17 UTC

William Browder, Anglo-American financial terrorist

Ben Brandon and Alex Bailin are London lawyers who have co-authored a fake story based on fabrications by William Browder about Russia's legal action against his tax evasion and the death of his accountant, Sergei Magnitsky. The writers of this London Times op ed managed to put eight lies into just five opening lines.

Co-author Brandon is the lawyer representing the U.S. in its request to extradite war crimes whistleblower Julian Assange. This raises questions about the connection between the U.S. and the U.K. in the promotion of the Browder/Magnitsky hoax and the attack against Assange.

Here is their story. And my proof of their fabrications.

Comment:

Lebanon protests: Demands are justified, but reform must proceed carefully to avoid chaos

Elijah J. Magnier
ejmagnier.com
Sat, 26 Oct 2019 17:08 UTC

After less than two weeks of generalized, impulsive and unorganised protests on the streets of Lebanon, a huge amount of money has been invested - by undeclared donors - in recent days to provide protestors with food, drinks and necessities so that they will stay in the street until "the fall of the political regime, the government and the rule of bankers - in particular the Central Bank".

Most Lebanese agree with the protestors' concerns about the corruption of the political-sectarian system which helps a handful of political leaders control the entire country. These figures have power over everything in Lebanon and can do anything without accountability or control. No wonder, because the judicial system is controlled by these same politicians who suspend any "unsuitable" judgement. Moreover, all top military and security officers - without exception - are appointed by the same political leaders who divide power amongst themselves. They spend their careers standing at the doors of the politicians they "belong" to (depending on their religion), asking for better and more senior positions within the security apparatus.

No one in Lebanon ever imagined this corrupt sectarian system could be shaken and that people would confront it on the streets. No political leader believed he would ever feel anxious about keeping his "throne", constructed over decades for the next family generation to take over when their fathers retire.

Not just San Francisco: Human waste from homeless people makes downtown Miami streets unpleasant, unsanitary

Linda Robertson
The Miami Herald
Sat, 19 Oct 2019 16:55 UTC

© Al Diaz for The Miami Herald
A 24-hour bathroom would be wonderful,” said Kesia Hollins, who has been homeless for six years.

Homeless people living on the streets and sidewalks of downtown Miami are also relieving themselves on the streets and sidewalks of downtown Miami, turning the city's core into an outdoor toilet, merchants and residents say.

"The situation is the worst I've seen in my 25 years here," said business owner Jose Goyanes. "The stench is really bad, even after you hose it down. We see people urinating against buildings or pulling their pants down and squatting because they have nowhere else to go."

Deposits of human waste can be seen in planters, doorways, gutters — or right in the middle of the block. The pavement behind the old Macy's department store is soaked with urine. Feces ferment in front of vacant storefronts for days when there's no landlord to clean up. People who work and live downtown are calling in a Code Brown.

'Burning sensations in their eyes': Mysterious gas odor closes businesses, schools in Delaware County, Pennsylvania

CBS News - Philadelphia
Fri, 25 Oct 2019 17:45 UTC

Delaware County's hazmat unit responded across the county following 25 separate reports of a gas odor, officials say. The reports began coming in around 10:30 a.m. Friday and were mostly in the western area of the county.

Some businesses closed early while Chester Charter Scholars Academy dismissed about 675 students after the school's principal said some students and staff began getting sick because of the smell.

"It seemed to be affecting some of our students and staff who have asthma more intensely and for other people, they had burning sensations in their eyes," Chester Charter Scholars Academy Head of School Akosua Watts said.

Corinne Canty rushed over to pick up her two sons, who are in the fourth and eighth grades.

"I smelled it when I came in. I smelled it when I was driving up here," Canty said.

America's bridge infrastructure needs work due to climate change!

Karen Graham
Digital Journal
Fri, 25 Oct 2019 04:41 UTC

America has over 600,000 bridges. Steel girder bridges, among the most common, could face serious infrastructure problems thanks to man-made climate change.

© AJ Henderson (CC BY-SA 4.0)
The supports for the unfinished end of the Dunn Memorial Bridge, which connects Albany and Rensselaer, NY. give a good cross section of girder bridge construction

Infrastructure in America and other countries around the world is aging and deteriorating, as a result of an increase in demand due to population growth and limitation in resources required for proper inspection and maintenance, according to Colorado State University's Hussam Mahmoud, an associate professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Mahmoud is the co-author of a new study linking the potential impacts of climate change with the structural integrity of thousands of steel girder bridges transecting America's highways and towns. The study, "Impact of climate change on the integrity of the superstructure of deteriorated U.S. bridges," was published in the peer-reviewed online journal, PLOS ONE on October 23, 3019.

These steel girder bridges frequently suffer from debris clogging their expansion joints. Expansion joints are what keeps the bridges steady as temperatures cause the steel to expand and contract as the air heats and cools. Because of this thermal expansion, debris removal from the expansion joints is an ongoing job.

UK police charge driver of truck in Essex migrant deaths, 5 arrested

RT
Sat, 26 Oct 2019 18:56 UTC

UK police have charged the driver of a refrigerated truck in which dozens of bodies were found with 39 counts of manslaughter and other offences, including conspiracy to traffic people and money laundering.

The horrific find was made at a business park near London on Wednesday.

Driver Maurice 'Mo' Robinson, 25, from Armagh in Northern Ireland is thought to have been in possession of the container for about half an hour before the gruesome discovery was made. The authorities found the human remains after a call was put in to ambulance services, however the details on who made that call have not been revealed.

Comment: Here's a photo of him:

Tiocfaidh ar... No, wait... No surrender!

Note that the UK press is calling him 'Irish'. He doesn't see himself that way!

Five suspects

So far five people have been arrested, including Robinson. Two of those are a married couple, both aged 38, who are understood to own the truck, which is registered in Bulgaria. However, the pair, who are both Irish and run a haulage business in Warrington, England, told the Daily Mail that they sold the vehicle some 13 months ago and were stunned to hear of the tragedy.

Comment: Previously: 39 bodies, including one teenager, found in a lorry container in Essex

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Society's Child

Barcelona sees fierce clashes as pro-independence demonstrators & police face off

Liberals outing Trump donors as 'racists' could lead to full-blown civil war

Sorry Sweden, those hand grenade attacks are not an 'image' problem

It's the Russians...again! This time meddling in Chile, warns US diplomat

London Times op-ed parrots Bill Browder's anti-Russia lies

Lebanon protests: Demands are justified, but reform must proceed carefully to avoid chaos

Not just San Francisco: Human waste from homeless people makes downtown Miami streets unpleasant, unsanitary

'Burning sensations in their eyes': Mysterious gas odor closes businesses, schools in Delaware County, Pennsylvania

America's bridge infrastructure needs work due to climate change!

UK police charge driver of truck in Essex migrant deaths, 5 arrested

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