They did it. Despite domestic and international protest (including by both the Roman Catholic and Protestant highest authorities in France) the French House passed on May 30 the Anti-Cult Law in the text already approved by the Senate. The final text was voted on June 12, 2001 as Law 2001-504.

A surprisingly quick discussion (in a day with a full agenda, including a debate on the new abortion law) led the French MPs to severely curtail the religious liberty of several thousand French citizens.

The anti-cult professionals among the MPs performed their usual show, MP Brard attacking in particular the official Catholic and Protestant criticism of the law as "breaching the principle of separation of Church and State" and blaming French Catholic officers inter alia for their "relations with Mr Introvigne, a very active apologist of laissez faire for the cults".

Anti-American attacks were less subtle than usual, and the U.S. administration was accused of having been infiltrated by both Scientology and "Moon". A naïve MP even suggested that, had this law existed, the suicides and homicides of the Solar Temple would have surely been prevented (see preliminary transcript of the House discussion here). We have examined the law (which still includes anti-brainwashing provisions, cosmetically disguised under another name and introduced by way of amendment of an already existing section) repeatedly. The question of the day is what can be done by international scholars of religious movements and religious liberty activists.

MIVILUDES (Mission Interministérielle de VIgilance et de LUtte contre les DÉrives) is an agency of the French government tasked with seeking and harassing, and ultimately prosecuting, any group it deems to be 'fond of ideas not commonly shared by society'. And who decides which ideas are and are not 'commonly shared by society'? The MIVILUDES, of course...

1. Rising religious discrimination in Europe
2. Definition of religious discrimination and the subcategory "sectophobia"
3. Documentation of governmental reports on sects
4. Documentation of French anti-sect law
5. The European network of anti-religious groups and their role in the French anti-religious law going European
6. FECRIS view upon religious freedom and the risk for a Europe of "thought-police" with FECRIS-groups as the masters
7. Documentation of the role of European anti-religious groups in creation of discrimination, restriction of liberty and violence from anti-religious groups
8. Objective sources of information and dialog
9. The need for investigation of religious discrimination in Europe

1. A rising religious discrimination in Europe

Several human rights bodies have reported a rise in religious intolerance in Europe the last ten years. Europe is very sensitive towards religious discrimination, due to the history of this continent and due to the fact that Europe is by many considered an opinion leader in the field of human rights in the world. Legislation and government actions towards religious minorities in Europe, therefore causes repercussions all over the world. On the other hand there is also a rising awareness and protest about the discrimination against minority groups that is arising. Here is an excerpt from a hearing in CSCE (Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe), from 5 years ago.

• Nicotine improves human brain performance
• Is the bad reputation of smoking undeserved?
• Professor: About time the positive side of tobacco is emphasised

By Niels Ipsen, environmental biologist, and Klaus Kjellerup, researcher.

New Analysis Summary: Update Of 40 Years Of Nicotine Research

According to public health officials, tobacco has no benefits at all: "A harmful and unnecessary product," says the WHO (World Health Organization), which has lobbied national governments to combat tobacco use since 1975¹.

The Danish anti-smoking lobby wants a total ban on tobacco: "We can not see what tobacco contributes," said the Cancer Society. "A smoke-free society should not be an unreasonable policy objective," they say in the Danish health directorate².

Since the 1960's authorities worldwide have focused exclusively on the health hazards of tobacco, and thus given it a very negative image. Their many anti-smoking campaigns may have made the world forget that tobacco use also has positive aspects. But as we know, any issue always has at least two sides, and now the positive effects of tobacco have resurfaced in the scientific literature.

After 40 years of scientific research on the effects of nicotine, researchers now say that they have sound scientific proof that smoking and nicotine have a significant positive effect on human brain performance.

The brain works better when it gets nicotine - almost like an optimized computer. Nicotine is a "work-drug" that enables its consumers to focus better and think faster. The brain also becomes more enduring, especially in smokers: Nicotine experiments show that smokers in prolonged working situations are able to maintain concentration for many hours longer than non-smokers.

I have been following the scientific research on psychopathy by Canada's Professor Robert Hare for some years given his seminal work on demonstrating that the common notions of psychopathy are grossly over-simplistic and one-dimensional. In their purest form Psychopaths literally are, as the title of one of Professor Hare's books suggests, "without conscience" but are not all like some Hannibal Lecter stereotype or likely to end up in prison or secure mental institution. Psychopaths are an aberrant minority or human sub-group that can be highly intelligent and able to assess and mimic normal human emotions and empathy so as to disguise their true nature from society, colleagues and even spouses. Intelligent psychopaths can in fact teach themselves to intellectually understand normal cooperative emotional human beings in considerable detail without sharing or feeling normal human emotions and sympathy - which are viewed by psychopaths as weaknesses and not the long-term communal human survival traits/strategies that they actually are.

Professor Hare pointed out that psychopaths thrive in the fields of big-business and politics and can create mayhem therein. Intelligent psychopaths can be very charming and charismatic and find their way into various positions of leadership because of such outward characteristics that are combined with single-minded and determined ruthlessness. Unfortunately, such charisma and decisiveness has beguiling broad appeal to non-psychopaths who do not have the either the time or inclination to undertake or audit various leadership responsibilities themselves. Psychopaths seek to be in positions of power, crave malign thrills and enjoy manipulating others and derive a sense of superiority from such pursuits.

Professor Hare coined the term "snakes in suits" to describe such individuals amongst the professional classes who are a major threat to wider humanity. Moreover, as Professor Hare postulated, there is increasing evidence of both a genetic predisposition and learned-behaviour component to psychopathy which is why it is often manifest within family dynasties and fostered by certain political, institutional and social regimes/environments. Researchers into criminal International Banking and Neo-Malthusian Eugenics will have little doubt that such psychopathy is a major factor within malign architects of of our rapidly assembling global 'New World Order'. Al Gore, whose pseudo-scientific claims on anthropogenic global warming were dismissed by the UK High Court, and Tony Blair, whose misrepresentations on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction led to war, have both for example been cited as exhibiting unrepentant psychopathic white-collar traits.

Are some children just born evil? Michelle Griffin reports.

A mother sits in a playroom with her young son. The phone rings. When she picks it up, a researcher watching through a two-way mirror asks her to look into her son's eyes and ''show him, in the way that feels most natural for you, that you love him''.

The mother is doing her best to connect, but this little boy won't return her gaze. He looks at her mouth, where the words are coming from, but it's as if he can't understand what she means.

Mark Dadds says some children literally cannot see the love in their mother's eyes. Professor Dadds, a parenting expert from the University of New South Wales, has just published results of his work in the British Journal of Psychiatry and the Journal of Child Psychiatry and Psychology that suggest the ability to make eye contact is vital in learning how to love other people.

For the past five years, he has been working with children referred to his Sydney clinic for sustained rages, continual aggression, calculated violence and, occasionally, cruelty to animals.

It's safe to say that most of us have come to accept, if not embrace, the abundance of wireless technology in our everyday lives. Not so for certain Americans who believe they suffer from Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity, or EHS. According to the BBC, five percent of Americans think that exposure to electromagnetic fields created by Wi-Fi and mobile phones are causing them to suffer headaches, muscle spasms, burning skin and chronic pain. And some of these people are seeking refuge in the secluded mountains of Appalachia.

Towns like Green Bank, West Virginia are part of the U.S. Radio Quiet Zone, 13,000 square miles of wireless free land created to keep transmissions from interfering with radio telescopes like those owned by the military and the National Radio Astronomy Observatory. Some of those who believe (and we keep saying "believe" because there is some controversy about the medical validity of the claims) they feel ill effects from Wi-Fi have sought refuge in these hills.

For the last twenty years, veterans of the Persian Gulf War of 1991 have been complaining of a range of ailments, including pain, fatigue, and problems with memory and concentration. And for just as long, the causes have remained uncertain and there has been a tendency by the military to attribute the complaints to post-traumatic stress disorder.

Now a long-term study at the University of Texas in Dallas has used a new technique to measure blood flow in the brains of sufferers and has detected "marked abnormalities" in brain function that can probably be attributed to low levels of exposure to sarin nerve gas. This abnormal blood flow has persisted or even worsened over the eleven years of the study.

"The findings mark a significant advancement in our understanding of the syndrome, which was for years written off by the Defense Department and the Department of Veterans Affairs as a form of combat stress rather than an objectively diagnosable injury," reports the Dallas Observer.

It is an indisputable fact that humans crave fat.

"Why Can't I Stop Eating Fatty Foods?"

French fries, onion rings, donuts, and everything else that comes out of a deep-fryer. Corn chips, potato chips, Cheetos, Fritos, Doritos, Tostitos, and all the other oil-soaked, salt-coated starches in the snack aisle. Oreos, buttered toast, salad dressing. Cheese, mayonnaise, and Alfredo sauce. The list goes on, and on.

Decades of diet propaganda, telling us over and over again that fat will kill us, have been unable to break us of our 'fat tooth'. Why do we crave fat so much?

It's because animal fat is the primary constituent of the evolutionary human diet. "Low-fat" diets just make us crave fat more keenly - and anti-animal-fat propaganda makes us binge on unsatisfying substitutes.

Online hacktivist collective Anonymous has lent its support to a global campaign to simultaneously occupy the major financial centres of London, New York, Madrid, Paris and other cities on 17 September in peaceful protest.

Anonymous tweeted from its @anonops account with the hashtag 'OCCUPYWALLSTREET' and linked to a poster urging its followers to assemble at the financial heart of the US, with the caveat: "Bring Tent."