Category: The Fifth Column

(Sputnik) – The Mizhi county government said on Weibo that two students had died of their wounds in hospital. It said initially that seven children were killed and 12 injured. The 28-year-old man, a former student, attacked schoolchildren on their way home. The suspect was promptly detained. He confessed he wanted to get revenge for having been bullied. Stabbings, including at schools, are not uncommon in China. Last February, a man stabbed a woman to death and injured 12 other people at a shopping mall in Beijing. Originally published by Sputnik Image Source: Daniel R. Blume, Flickr, Creative CommonsKnife Share this:

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(OW) – Once again, the Israeli military has turned its guns on Gaza — this time on unarmed protestors, in a series of shootings over the last few weeks. Gaza’s already under-resourced hospitals are straining to care for the 1,600 protesters who have been injured, on top of 40 killed. According to a group of United Nations experts, “there is no available evidence to suggest that the lives of heavily armed security forces were threatened” by the unarmed demonstrators they fired on. The violence is getting some coverage in the…

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(HRW) – Last week the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein reminded a room of World Bank economists that human rights are “also your job,” and called on the institution to “marry human rights and economics.” That call, at a World Bank event to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, echoes criticism by Human Rights Watch and numerous other civil society organizations that the World Bank needs to do a better job of making human rights central to its mission…

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Screenshot from YouTube Early in January 2018, Asifa, an 8-year-old Muslim child from the nomadic Bakarwal community in Kathua, Jammu and Kashmir in northern India, was gang-raped and murdered, as reported by Global Voices. Much of India’s local news coverage relegated the heinous story to its back pages due to its religiously-charged content. Asifa hailed from a Muslim community while her perpetrators come from a predominantly Hindu community backed by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) with sloganeering and rallies in the Jammu region. After three months and countless struggles faced…

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  (HRW) – Last month, Latin America and Caribbean countries adopted a landmark regional agreement on environmental rights – the first to offer specific protections for people who stand up in defense of their right to a healthy environment. On Earth Day, the effort is a good reminder of the dangers and challenges that still face environmental defenders around the region. March 26, 2018 Report Amazonians on Trial Judicial Harassment of Indigenous Leaders and Environmentalists in Ecuador The treaty, adopted in Escazú, Costa Rica, will require states that ratify it…

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According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, drunk driving is responsible for a third of all fatalities that occur in road accidents. In a bid to reduce the number of deaths which occur as a result of drunken driving, different states have come up with DUI and DWI laws and corresponding penalties. There are some states which are seen to have very tough laws and high conviction rates, while others have less stringent regulations and lower conviction rates.   Arizona The state of Arizona is ranked to have the…

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  (HRW) – At least 13 municipalities in Lebanon have forcibly evicted at least 3,664 Syrian refugees from their homes and expelled them from the municipalities, apparently because of their nationality or religion, while another 42,000 refugees remain at risk of eviction, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The 57-page report, “‘Our Homes Are Not for Strangers’: Mass Evictions of Syrian Refugees by Lebanese Municipalities,” documents inconsistencies in the reasons municipalities have given for expelling Syrians and the failure of the central government to protect refugees’ rights….

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(HRW) – An unlikely source took a stance on respect for women: professional rugby. Two Northern Ireland players had their contracts revoked following their widely publicized rape prosecution. Both players, Paddy Jackson and Stuart Olding, were acquitted of rape of a woman in 2016 when she was 19, but the trial revealed several players’ text messages bragging about what they considered sexual conquests, while referring to the woman in degrading, nauseating terms. On Saturday, the Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU) and Ulster Rugby let the players go for failure to…

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(OW) – How much of your paycheck do you plan to hand over to corporate Pentagon contractors this year? The average American taxpayer will have paid $14,520 in federal income taxes in 2017. And that’s not even including the taxes that every working person pays to take care of our elders (and one day, ourselves) through Social Security and Medicare. If that seems like a ton of money, it is. A full-time, minimum-wage worker earning $7.25 an hour would have only earned $15,080. Of course, how much you pay depends…

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It is a sad fact that many former military members fall into debt. It could be so bad to the point that veterans are left both penniless and homeless. Debt actually begins to accumulate while members are still in service. The amount of money owed usually increases at a faster rate than civilians. A couple of causes of this debt includes the gap between pay and payments, and the ease of acceptance of credit. These bills can follow military members into their veteran years. Pay is Steady, but Debt Grows…

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