Society – Page 1553 – Infinite Unknown

London’s Metropolitan Police accused of waterboarding drug suspects

June 10, 2009June 10, 2009 by Infinite

police_torture_waterboarding_police-state
The claims are part of an investigation which includes accusations that evidence was fabricated and suspects’ property was stolen

Metropolitan Police officers subjected suspects to waterboarding, according to allegations at the centre of a major anti-corruption inquiry, The Times has learnt.

The torture claims are part of a wide-ranging investigation which also includes accusations that officers fabricated evidence and stole suspects’ property. It has already led to the abandonment of a drug trial and the suspension of several police officers.

However, senior policing officials are most alarmed by the claim that officers in Enfield, North London, used the controversial CIA interrogation technique to simulate drowning. Scotland Yard is appointing a new borough commander in Enfield in a move that is being seen as an attempt by Sir Paul Stephenson, the Met Commissioner, to enforce a regime of “intrusive supervision”.

The waterboarding claims will fuel the debate about police conduct that has raged in the wake of hundreds of public complaints of brutality at the anti-G20 protests in April.

The part of the inquiry focusing on alleged police brutality has been taken over by the Independent Police Complaints Commission. It is examining the conduct of six officers connected to drug raids in November in which four men and a woman were arrested at addresses in Enfield and Tottenham. Police said they found a large amount of cannabis and the suspects were charged with importation of a Class C drug. The case was abandoned four months later when the Crown Prosecution Service said it would not have been in the public interest to proceed. It is understood that the trial, by revealing the torture claims, would have compromised the criminal investigation into the six officers.

US is a weapons supermarket for terrorists, inquiry finds

June 8, 2009 by Infinite

Undercover inspectors manage to buy high-grade gear including nuclear triggers and evade export bans

The US is a virtual supermarket for terrorists and foreign governments seeking high-end military technology, including components that can be used to build nuclear weapons and equip militants fighting US and British troops, the American government has found.

Over the past year, government investigators posing as private buyers purchased military-grade body armour, technology to stabilise and steer guided missiles, a device that can be used to detonate nuclear weapons, and other munitions through legal means in the US. They evaded export controls and posted dummy versions of the gear to countries known as trans-shipment points for terrorist groups and foreign governments seeking arms and weapons components.

The investigation shows lax sales restrictions and export controls could allow terrorists and hostile foreign governments to buy equipment to use against US and British troops in Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries, US officials say. Foreign governments and terrorist groups have sought to purchase military technology from the US, according to officials, and in 2008 more than 145 people were charged with violating export control laws, with 43% of those attempting illegally to ship gear to Iran and China.

The private US companies that provided the equipment – in some cases from government surplus – said they were not required to check buyers’ backgrounds or obtain government licences for the sales. The US commerce department found that the companies selling the equipment had not violated any laws or regulations. The problem, investigators said, was that sensitive military equipment barred from export was often legal to sell within the US, with little restriction, and buyers need only establish a plausible front company.

Taser use to obtain DNA not unconstitutional: NIAGARA COURTS RULING

June 7, 2009 by Infinite

A decision by Falls Police to use a Taser to obtain a DNA sample from a suspect in an armed robbery, shooting and kidnapping is not unconstitutional.

Niagara County Court Judge Sara Sheldon Sperrazza reached that conclusion in a 16 page decision handed down Wednesday that refused to dismiss an indictment against Ryan Smith and denied his request to have DNA evidence that links him to two separate criminal cases thrown out.

The ruling left Smith’s attorney, Patrick Balkin, stunned and requesting additional time to prepare for a trial that had been scheduled to begin later this month.

“Your honor, I was not expecting this ruling,” Balkin said. “I have not begun to have the DNA evidence analyzed and will need time to do that.”

Sperrazza set a new trial date of Aug. 10.

“I was not surprised. I was confident the judge would rule in our favor,” Assistant District Attorney Doreen Hoffmann said. “Clearly, we are satisfied that the judge heard all the evidence at the hearing and made the correct decision.”

Balkin sharply questioned the ruling.

“She’s the first judge in western civilization to say you can use a Taser to enforce a court order,” Balkin said.

Jimi Hendrix murdered by his manager, says former aide

June 1, 2009 by Infinite

John Bannister, the surgeon who dealt with Hendrix at hospital, has said he was convinced the star had drowned in red wine, despite having very little alcohol in his bloodstream.

“I recall vividly the very large amounts of red wine that oozed from his stomach and his lungs and in my opinion there was no question that Jimi Hendrix had drowned, if not at home then on the way to the hospital,” he wrote in 1992.

Source: The Independent

Star ‘stuffed with pills as part of insurance scam’

The rock legend Jimi Hendrix was murdered by his manager, who stood to collect millions of dollars on the star’s life insurance policy, a former roadie has claimed in a new book.

James “Tappy” Wright says that Hendrix’s manager, Michael Jeffrey, drunkenly confessed to killing him by stuffing pills into his mouth and washing them down with several bottles of red wine because he feared Hendrix intended to dump him for a new manager, according to a report in the Mail on Sunday.

In his book, Rock Roadie, Mr Wright says Jeffrey told him in 1971 that Hendrix had been “worth more to him dead than alive” as he had taken out a life insurance policy on the musician worth $2m (about £1.2m at the time), with himself as the beneficiary. Two years later, Jeffrey was killed in a plane crash.

Supreme Court: Suspects can be interrogated without lawyer

May 28, 2009 by Infinite

“The Obama administration had asked the court to overturn Michigan v. Jackson, disappointing civil rights and civil liberties groups that expected President Barack Obama to reverse the policies of his Republican predecessor, George W. Bush.”

WASHINGTON (AP) – The Supreme Court on Tuesday overturned a long-standing ruling that stopped police from initiating questions unless a defendant’s lawyer was present, a move that will make it easier for prosecutors to interrogate suspects.

The high court, in a 5-4 ruling, overturned the 1986 Michigan v. Jackson ruling, which said police may not initiate questioning of a defendant who has a lawyer or has asked for one unless the attorney is present. The Michigan ruling applied even to defendants who agreed to talk to the authorities without their lawyers.

The court’s conservatives overturned that opinion, with Justice Antonin Scalia saying “it was poorly reasoned.”

Under the Jackson opinion, police could not even ask a defendant who had been appointed a lawyer if he wanted to talk, Scalia said.

“It would be completely unjustified to presume that a defendant’s consent to police-initiated interrogation was involuntary or coerced simply because he had previously been appointed a lawyer,” Scalia said in the court’s opinion.

Top billionaire club in bid to curb overpopulation

May 25, 2009 by Infinite

The elitists are discussing the most effective ways to kill you.

America’s richest people meet to discuss ways of tackling a ‘disastrous’ environmental, social and industrial threat

SOME of America’s leading billionaires have met secretly to consider how their wealth could be used to slow the growth of the world’s population and speed up improvements in health and education.

The philanthropists who attended a summit convened on the initiative of Bill Gates, the Microsoft co-founder, discussed joining forces to overcome political and religious obstacles to change.

Described as the Good Club by one insider it included David Rockefeller Jr, the patriarch of America’s wealthiest dynasty, Warren Buffett and George Soros, the financiers, Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York, and the media moguls Ted Turner and Oprah Winfrey.

Related article: Ted Turner Repeats Call For Population Curb

These members, along with Gates, have given away more than £45 billion since 1996 to causes ranging from health programmes in developing countries to ghetto schools nearer to home.

Top billionaires hold secret meeting

May 25, 2009 by Infinite

Bill Gates, George Soros, Oprah Winfrey, Warren Buffett, Ted Turner among philanthropists at gathering in New York

In a quiet meeting closed to the news media and the public, Bill Gates, David Rockefeller Sr., Oprah Winfrey and other leading philanthropists met in New York this month to discuss ways to promote efforts to solve growing social problems in America and abroad.

Together, the philanthropists in the room have committed a total of more than $72.5 billion to charitable causes since 1996, according to Chronicle of Philanthropy tallies.

The unusual event was held May 5 at Rockefeller University and was organized by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Among the high-profile participants were Ted Turner, Warren E. Buffett, George Soros and New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. (All of those philanthropists have appeared at one time on The Chronicle’s ranking of America’s most-generous donors.)

Several of the people at the meeting confirmed their involvement, but declined to tell The Chronicle about what was discussed or why they gathered almost in secret.

According to a person familiar with the meeting, the wealthy philanthropists gathered to trade ideas about how to raise the level of philanthropy in the world.

Conservative radio hosts gets waterboarded, and lasts six seconds before saying its torture

May 23, 2009 by Infinite

What a genius !

Chicago radio host Erich “Mancow” Muller decided he’d get himself waterboarded to prove the technique wasn’t torture.

It didn’t turn out that way. “Mancow,” in fact, lasted just six or seven seconds before crying foul. Apparently, the experience went pretty badly — “Witnesses said Muller thrashed on the table, and even instantly threw the toy cow he was holding as his emergency tool to signify when he wanted the experiment to stop,” according to NBC Chicago.

“The average person can take this for 14 seconds,” Marine Sergeant Clay South told his audience before he was waterboarded on air. “He’s going to wiggle, he’s going to scream, he’s going to wish he never did this.”

Mancow was set on a 7-foot long table with his legs elevated and his feet tied.

“I wanted to prove it wasn’t torture,” Mancow said. “They cut off our heads, we put water on their face…I got voted to do this but I really thought ‘I’m going to laugh this off.’ “

The upshot? “It is way worse than I thought it would be, and that’s no joke,” Mancow told listeners. “It is such an odd feeling to have water poured down your nose with your head back…It was instantaneous…and I don’t want to say this: absolutely torture.”

“Absolutely. I mean that’s drowning,” he added later. “It is the feeling of drowning.”

“If I knew it was gonna be this bad, I would not have done it,” he said.

The 42-year-old radio host is no stranger to controversy. In 2005, he was maligned for saying that then-Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean was “vile,” “bloodthirsty,” “evil” and “should be kicked out of America.”

Watch him be waterboarded in the following video:

And watch his response here:

John Byrne
Friday, May 22nd, 2009

Source: The Raw Story

Final report: Endemic rape and abuse of more than 30.000 Irish children in Catholic care

May 20, 2009 by Infinite

Beatings and humiliation by nuns and priests were common at institutions that held up to 30,000 children, Ryan report states

Henry McDonald on the long-awaited report on abuse in Ireland’s schools

Rape and sexual molestation were “endemic” in Irish Catholic church-run industrial schools and orphanages, a report revealed today.

The nine-year investigation found that Catholic priests and nuns for decades terrorised thousands of boys and girls in the Irish Republic, while government inspectors failed to stop the chronic beatings, rape and humiliation.

The high court judge Sean Ryan today unveiled the 2,600-page final report of Ireland’s commission into child abuse, which drew on testimony from thousands of former inmates and officials from more than 250 church-run institutions. Police were called to the news conference amid angry scenes as victims were prevented from attending.

More than 30,000 children deemed to be petty thieves, truants or from dysfunctional families – a category that often included unmarried mothers – were sent to Ireland’s austere network of industrial schools, reformatories, orphanages and hostels from the 1930s until the last facilities shut in the 1990s.

Crucified nun dies in exorcism

May 20, 2009 by Infinite

“God has performed a miracle for her, finally Irina is delivered from evil,” AFP quoted the priest as saying.

“I don’t understand why journalists are making such a fuss about this. Exorcism is a common practice in the heart of the Romanian Orthodox church and my methods are not at all unknown to other priests,” Father Daniel added.

Father Daniel says the nun’s death was justified

A Romanian nun has died after being bound to a cross, gagged and left alone for three days in a cold room in a convent, Romanian police have said.

Members of the convent in north-east Romania claim Maricica Irina Cornici was possessed and that the crucifixion had been part of an exorcism ritual.

Cornici was found dead on the cross on Wednesday after fellow nuns called an ambulance, according to police.

A priest and four nuns were charged with imprisonment leading to death.

Orphan

Police say the 23-year-old nun, who was denied food and drink throughout her ordeal, had been tied and chained to the cross and a towel pushed into her mouth to smother any sounds.

A post-mortem is to be carried out, although initial reports say that Cornici died from asphyxiation.

I don’t understand why journalists are making such a fuss about this

Father Daniel

Court Orders Parents to Poison Their 13-Year-Old Child with Chemotherapy

May 16, 2009 by Infinite

daniel-hauser

(NaturalNews) Against the wishes of both the parents and the 13-year-old patient in question, a Minnesota judge has ruled that Daniel Hauser must undergo conventional chemotherapy treatments, which are characterized by the mass-poisoning of the patient with toxic chemicals.

For opting to explore alternative and natural remedies rather than chemotherapy for their son, the parents were accused of medical neglect and now face having their son taken away from them by Child Protective Services (CPS). They may also face prison time if they refuse to follow the judge’s orders.

Related article: Judge rules family can’t refuse chemo for boy (AP)

Daniel was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, a health condition that is widely known by alternative cancer practitioners to be reversible (curable), especially in younger patients. Conventional medical doctors have told the courts that unless Daniel is subjected to toxic chemotherapy treatments, he has a 95% chance of dying.

That statistics is an outright lie. It is one of the many deceptive statistics put forth by the cancer industry in order to scare patients into submitting to extremely toxic protocols that cause far more harm than good.

Cancer patients cured by chemotherapy? Zero

There is not a single cancer patient that has ever been cured by chemotherapy. Zero. They don’t exist. Not a single documented case in the history of western medicine.

And why is that? Because conventional medicine operates from the false belief that there is no cure for cancer! Thus, anyone offering a cure (or assisting in the body’s own natural reversal of the disease) is immediately dismissed as a quack. Meanwhile, the real quackery is found in the pushing of toxic chemotherapy chemicals that are injected into the bodies of patients and called “treatment” when they should really be called “torture.” (Nancy Pelosi, by the way, was never briefed on the fact that chemotherapy is torture…)

What’s most disturbing in all of this, of course, is that the state is now forcing parents to poison their own children, requiring they hand over money to Big Pharma and conventional cancer treatment centers. The concept of freedom of choice has been stolen away from parents. The idea of protecting your children from toxic chemicals has been not just nullified, but made illegal!

Bilderberg group meet in Greece – and here’s their address

May 14, 2009 by Infinite

The elite meets to talk about their next creation: The Greatest Depression.

Bavarian illuminati
Roger Boyes and John Carr in Athens

Don’t tell anyone, don’t breathe a word, but the world’s most powerful men are meeting secretly again to save the planet from economic catastrophe. Oh, and their address, should you want to send them your opinions, is: c/o Nafsika Astir Palace Hotel, Apollonos Avenue 40, 16671 Vouliagmeni, Greece.

Bed space is a bit tight there for the next two days while the Bilderberg illuminati hold their private conclave in the five-star Greek hotel. Every year since 1954 a club of about 130 senior or up-and-coming politicians gather at the fireside of a secluded hotel with top bankers and a sprinkling of royalty to discuss burning issues, to trade confidences and just stay abreast of the I-know-something-you-don’t-know circuit. No lists of participants are disclosed, no press conferences are held; spill the beans and you’re out of the magic circle.

For those of us standing outside the locked gates all that is left is to hope that they will sleep well, avoid jet ski injury and solve our problems for us. For the Bilderbergers it is a little like that recent MI5 recruitment ad: “See all your best work go unnoticed!”

Each country delegates two people to the steering committee that is the intellectual hub of Bilderberg. In the past Kenneth Clarke, the Shadow Business Secretary, and Martin Taylor, formerly head of Barclays Bank, have had their hand on the British tiller.

This year the club is going to talk about depression. “According to the pre-meeting booklet sent out to attendees, Bilderberg is looking at two options,” says the Bilderberg-watcher Daniel Estulin – “either a prolonged, agonising depression that dooms the world to decades of stagnation, decline and poverty – or an intense but shorter depression that paves the way for a new sustainable economic world order, with less sovereignty but more efficiency.”

Court denies mother all access to her children

May 10, 2009 by Infinite

A spokeswoman for Mothers 4 Justice, a pressure group, said: “When you consider what this woman was put in prison for, it is absolutely appalling. She was put in a jail with murderers and criminals.”

A COURT has denied the former wife of a rich City financier all access to their three children after she was found to be turning them against him.

In an extraordinary ruling, the woman, who was also judged to be too indulgent a parent, has been legally barred from seeing her children for three years. She was jailed for approaching one of them in the street and telling him she loved him in breach of a court order. She is facing a possible return to jail this summer for posting a video about her plight on the internet.

The woman judge presiding over the case justified banning contact between the mother and her children because they were being placed in “an intolerable situation of conflict of loyalties resulting in them suffering serious emotional harm”.

During supervised visits with her, the children made serious allegations about their father which were later shown to be unfounded. Social workers believed the mother was either prompting them to make the claims or they were saying them just to please her.

G20: Police used undercover agents to incite crowds

May 10, 2009 by Infinite

MP demands inquiry into Met tactics at demo

Police and protesters clash in London on 1 April 2009. Photograph: Chris Ison/PA

An MP who was involved in last month’s G20 protests in London is to call for an investigation into whether the police used agents provocateurs to incite the crowds.

Liberal Democrat Tom Brake says he saw what he believed to be two plain-clothes police officers go through a police cordon after presenting their ID cards.

Brake, who along with hundreds of others was corralled behind police lines near Bank tube station in the City of London on the day of the protests, says he was informed by people in the crowd that the men had been seen to throw bottles at the police and had encouraged others to do the same shortly before they passed through the cordon.

Brake, a member of the influential home affairs select committee, will raise the allegations when he gives evidence before parliament’s joint committee on human rights on Tuesday.

“When I was in the middle of the crowd, two people came over to me and said, ‘There are people over there who we believe are policemen and who have been encouraging the crowd to throw things at the police,'” Brake said. But when the crowd became suspicious of the men and accused them of being police officers, the pair approached the police line and passed through after showing some form of identification.

Transplant tourism: Jobless Spaniards sell kidneys

May 10, 2009 by Infinite

A MACABRE traffic associated with poor countries in Asia and Latin America has sprung up for the first time in western Europe as the credit crunch reduces Spaniards to selling organs to “transplant tourists”.

Spanish “kidney for sale” advertisements have proliferated recently on the internet as people struggle to make ends meet in a country whose 17% unemployment rate is the highest in Europe.

Sergio, a 42-year-old welder and father of four, said he had received an offer of £20,000 from a German couple who needed his kidney for their five-year-old son. If tests showed them to be compatible, an operation would be performed in a “third country” since such transactions are illegal in Europe.

“Apparently, there’s a waiting list of at least five years for a kidney in Germany,” he told a television programme, “but in five years the kid will be dead.”

Just to advertise a human organ for sale is illegal in Spain and other sellers sounded nervous when contacted last week on the telephone by The Sunday Times.

Comedian got past security guards into US State department

May 10, 2009 by Infinite

Comedian Armando Iannucci got past security guards at the US State department in Washington with a pass which “could have been produced by a child”, in what he described as “probably international espionage”.

The identification he had with him was an amateurish BBC pass with his face show by a print out of a picture of him from the internet Photo: PAUL GROVER

Mr Iannucci was researching his latest film, the US-British political drama ‘In the Loop’, when he visited the department’s headquarters in the Foggy Bottom neighbourhood of the US political capital.

The identification he had with him was an amateurish BBC pass with his face show by a print out of a picture of him from the internet.

He flashed the card at the guards in the main reception of the building, said he had an appointment and was waved through.

The comedian then spent an hour walking around the building taking photographs, which were later used to help with the set designs for the film.

The writer, who also created political satire-cum-farce The Thick Of It for BBC4, said: “I had a terrible, amateur BBC identity pass, with basically my face printed off Google and my name under it.

“A child could have produced it in 20 seconds. I wandered up to the front reception of the State department and said ‘BBC. I’m here for the 12. 30.’

BBC: Allen Stanford may have been a US government informer

June 29, 2009May 10, 2009 by Infinite

Sir Allen Stanford denies any wrongdoing at his Antiguan bank

Evidence has emerged that the Texan who bankrolled English cricket may have been a US government informer.

Sir Allen Stanford, who is accused of bank fraud, is the subject of an investigation by the BBC’s Panorama.

Sources told Panorama that if he was a paid anti-drug agency informer, that could explain why a 2006 probe into his financial dealings was quietly dropped.

Sir Allen vigorously denies allegations of financial wrongdoing, despite a massive shortfall in his bank’s assets.

Related information:
– Kucinich: Who Told SEC to “Stand Down” on Stanford Probe?
– US authorities had been investigating Allen Stanford for 15 years! (Times)
– FBI tracks down Texas financier in $8 billion fraud case (AP):
Stanford is not under arrest and is not in custody.
– Past probes sought to tie Stanford to drugs (Houston Chronicle)
– Former Assistant Secretary of Housing: The U.S. is the Global Leader in Illegal Money Laundering

But the British receiver of his failed Stanford International Bank – based in Antigua – told Panorama that the books clearly show the deficit.

Secret documents

Of the $7.2bn (£4.8bn) in deposits claimed by the bank, only $500m (£331m) has been traced.

The UK government does take financial malpractice very seriously and issues regular advice on countries and jurisdictions where there may be serious deficiencies in regulation

Foreign Office spokesman

The $6.7bn (£4.4bn) black hole in Sir Allen’s off-shore bank affects 28,000 depositors – 200 of whom are British, who have collectively lost $80m (£53m) – and raises serious questions for the British Foreign Office and the American authorities.

Secret documents seen by Panorama show both governments knew in 1990 that the Texan was a former bankrupt and his first bank was suspected of involvement with Latin American money-launderers.

Prison officer zaps children with 50,000-volt stun gun ‘to show them what a day at work is like’

May 6, 2009 by Infinite

Walter Schmidt used a stun gun like this one to administer powerful electric shocks to children touring the prison

Prison officer Walter Schmidt wanted to give his colleagues’ children a taste of what their mums and dads get up to at work while showing them around a Florida jail.

So to make the youngsters’ experience all the more realistic as they toured Franklin Correctional Institution during the lock-up’s ‘Take our Daughters and Sons to Work Day’, he decided to zap them with his 50,000-volt stun gun.

The jolt sent at least two of them sprawling to the floor, crying out in pain and clutching at agonising burns on their arms. One child ended up in hospital.

But 37-year-old Schmidt told officials who later fired him that he had only been trying to show the children – whose parents all work at the jail near Tallahassee – what a typical day involves while handling unruly inmates.

‘It wasn’t intended to be malicious, but educational,’ he explained to the St Petersburg Times.

‘The big shock came when I got fired.’

Sgt Schmidt, who had served as a jailer for 14 years and was in charge of the prison arsenal, claims that he had asked permission from the children’s parents for the stunt. ‘When they said “Sure” I went ahead and did it,’ he shrugged.

Buying Brand Obama

May 5, 2009 by Infinite

Branding in action: President Barack Obama gestures during a town hall meeting in Fort Myers, Fla., in February to discuss the economy. AP photo / Charles Dharapak

Barack Obama is a brand. And the Obama brand is designed to make us feel good about our government while corporate overlords loot the Treasury, our elected officials continue to have their palms greased by armies of corporate lobbyists, our corporate media diverts us with gossip and trivia and our imperial wars expand in the Middle East. Brand Obama is about being happy consumers. We are entertained. We feel hopeful. We like our president. We believe he is like us. But like all branded products spun out from the manipulative world of corporate advertising, we are being duped into doing and supporting a lot of things that are not in our interest.

What, for all our faith and hope, has the Obama brand given us? His administration has spent, lent or guaranteed $12.8 trillion in taxpayer dollars to Wall Street and insolvent banks in a doomed effort to reinflate the bubble economy, a tactic that at best forestalls catastrophe and will leave us broke in a time of profound crisis. Brand Obama has allocated nearly $1 trillion in defense-related spending and the continuation of our doomed imperial projects in Iraq, where military planners now estimate that 70,000 troops will remain for the next 15 to 20 years. Brand Obama has expanded the war in Afghanistan, including the use of drones sent on cross-border bombing runs into Pakistan that have doubled the number of civilians killed over the past three months. Brand Obama has refused to ease restrictions so workers can organize and will not consider single-payer, not-for-profit health care for all Americans. And Brand Obama will not prosecute the Bush administration for war crimes, including the use of torture, and has refused to dismantle Bush’s secrecy laws or restore habeas corpus.

US families rely on handouts in world’s richest country

May 3, 2009 by Infinite

Working parents feed their children in soup kitchens as cost of living soars

Food bank employees in Gassaway, West Virginia. Photograph: Kevin Lorenzi/Rapport

Each Friday, teachers in elementary schools in a corner of the richest country in the world quietly slip packs of peanut butter, fruit and granola bars into some pupils’ bags – enough food to get them through the weekend before school dinners resume on Monday.

Not a word is said to the pupils or their parents because, even as the number of families in West Virginia dependent on food handouts continues to rise, many are ashamed to admit to their friends and neighbours that they need help.

“The teachers spot the children they think aren’t getting enough to eat at home, those from families they know are having difficulties,” said Carla Nardella, who heads the state’s main food bank which distributes free boxes of groceries and supplies soup kitchens in West Virginia.

“These are proud people, so the teachers do it discreetly. We call them backpack snack packs, and started distributing them this year to give extra food to children because the situation is getting more difficult.

“We’ve begun with 400 children. It’s our hope that one day there will be a programme like this in every school in West Virginia, because there are children in every school who need help. It’s so hard seeing children go hungry.”

It is not just the children. One in six of West Virginia’s 1.8 million people receive government food stamps – one of the highest rates in the country – and the total is rising by the week.

Also in the food lines are elderly people who have seen their pensions wiped out by the stock market crash, families driven into destitution by medical expenses because they cannot afford insurance, and the large numbers of people who are perennially dependent on welfare in one of America’s poorest states.

World-renowned pianist declares he will not return to U.S.

April 28, 2009 by Infinite

Krystian Zimerman, one of the world’s most well-regarded concert pianists, said he will not return to the United States because of the nation’s military policies and President Barack Obama’s support for a missile shield site in Zimerman’s home country of Poland.

Zimerman made the announcement during a Sunday concert at California’s Walt Disney Concert Hall.

“Get your hands off of my country,” he said, according to the Los Angeles Times. ” He also made reference to the U.S. military detention camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,” the paper reported.

“About 30 or 40 people in the audience walked out, some shouting obscenities. ‘Yes,’ he answered, ‘some people when they hear the word military start marching.’

“Others remained but booed or yelled for him to shut up and play the piano. But many more cheered. Zimerman responded by saying that America has far finer things to export than the military, and he thanked those who support democracy.”

Children tracked by satellite on public transport; Stasi ‘Bus Angels’ to report bad behaviour

April 24, 2009 by Infinite

Children will be tracked by satellite on public transport and encouraged to spy on their friends and report bad behaviour, under a pilot scheme by the Welsh Assembly.

Pupils will use a picture swipe card to clock on and off the bus allowing parents to keep a closer check on their child via a website

The project is being trialled across the six North Wales counties to tackle anti-social behaviour on school buses.

Pupils will use a picture swipe card to clock on and off the bus allowing parents to keep a closer check on their child via a website.

It will help deal with a number of issues including truancy, drivers reporting and identifying ill-behaved children and monitoring a child’s whereabouts in the event of them going missing or a bus breakdown.

The scheme include ‘Bus Angels’ aged 14 and above, who covertly report incidents of bad behaviour,

Schools hire bouncers as crowd control to cover classes for teachers

April 13, 2009 by Infinite

Doormen were given jobs at a secondary school in the MidlandsTeaching union in warning over use of untrained staff

Bouncers and former military personnel are being hired by schools as “crowd control” to cover classes for teachers.

In one case, a state secondary school in the Midlands approached an agency which employed bouncers to take two doormen on to their staff. They were given full-time jobs as “cover supervisors” – standing in for teachers who are sick, on maternity leave or on courses.

Related article: Schools hiring bouncers instead of supply teachers to cover lessons (Daily Mail)

Teachers at the National Union of Teachers’ annual conference in Cardiff warned yesterday that too many heads were using untrained staff to take lessons. They voted to demand that every class should have a qualified teacher.

Andrew Baisley, a maths teacher from Camden, north London, said: “The idea is more about crowd control… than education. If you’re stern and loud, that’s all that’s necessary.”

He added: “I have nothing against a bouncer wanting to become a teacher and training for the job, but if you want to be a teacher you need training to work with children.”

Top cop fired for allegedly using Taser on wife

April 11, 2009 by Infinite

OAKWOOD, Texas (AP) — The chief of a small Central Texas town’s police department has been fired and jailed for allegedly using a Taser gun on his wife.

Former Oakwood police chief Oly Ivy is in Leon County Jail in Centerville on Wednesday, charged with aggravated assault. Bond is $100,000.

Ivy, 30, was arrested near Palestine on Monday. The city council fired him that night.

Dublin archbishop: Sex abuse report will shock

December 2, 2017April 10, 2009 by Infinite

And how many were abused since the dark ages? This report did not shock me at all. Such behavior can be considered “normal” within the Catholic Church.

The Catholic Church also killed millions of innocent people in the name of Christ.

He says it will show that thousands of youths were abused from 1975-2004

DUBLIN – The Archbishop of Dublin said Thursday that an upcoming report on child sexual abuse involving Catholic priests will likely reveal that thousands of youngsters were abused from 1975 to 2004.

The report “will shock us all,” said Diarmuid Martin, during Mass at Dublin’s Pro-Cathedral.

The archbishop said the report, compiled by the Dublin Archdiocese Commission of Investigation, is expected to show that “thousands of children or young people across Ireland were abused by priests in the period under investigation and the horror of that abuse was not recognized for what it is.”

The government-appointed commission was set up to investigate abuses within the Dublin archdiocese in 2006, the same year the diocese admitted that up to 102 of its priests were suspected of abusing children. The report is studying how complaints of child sexual abuse were handled.

The commission has also now begun an investigation into the Diocese of Cloyne, in County Cork. Commission member Ita Mangan said that could potentially delay the publication of the Dublin report which had been planned for this summer.