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Tajikistani court sentences seven IS supporters

recruit
© www.rferl.orgA screen grab of recruiting for Islamic State in Yekaterinburg, Tajikistan, March 2015.
A court in Tajikistan's southern Khatlon province has sentenced seven local residents to prison terms ranging from 7 to 27 years on charges of involvement in the activities of the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group (outlawed in Russia), the court secretariat told TASS on Friday.

According to the verdict announced by the judge, the defendants are charged under several articles of the country's Criminal Code, including the establishment of a criminal organization, public appeals for changing the existing political system, promotion of IS ideas and recruitment of citizens for taking part in the fighting in Syria.

"The law enforcement bodies of the province traced the extremist group, among its members were three young people under 18, after the incident with rising the IS flag in the city of Shaartuz in August," a source in Tajikistan's Interior Ministry told TASS. The investigation proved the involvement of the group's members in attempts to recruit young residents of Shaartuz to Islamic State, active correspondence in social networks with supporters of the terrorist organization and a statement of their support for their ideas.

According to the State Committee for National Security of Tajikistan, more than 700 citizens of the country, mostly young people, are taking part in the fighting in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan on the side of the Islamic State.

Comment: IS tentacles reach far and wide. Every point of recruitment is an anchor to and of this devastating societal plague and territorial end-game, brought to someone else's (your) doorstep courtesy the US, UK, Israel and NATO. No restrictions apply.

Recruitment involves a propaganda video, promises of money and a "carefree life" for those who travel to IS-controlled areas in Syria and Iraq. Most recruits come from labor migrants. Scaremongering plays on the fears of the "Islamist threat" and the societal effects/ramifications of radicalization. Over a million Tajik migrants work in Russia.


Eye 1

Google accused of spying on children as young as 7 years old

google office
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission in which they allege that Google has been violating the privacy of students as young as seven years old by mining their data.

The EFF's Tuesday complaint said that Google can track every search term, site, and video students view using a feature that is enabled by default on the Chromebooks that are sold to schools. The data collection is allegedly not used for advertising purposes, but rather to "to improve Google products."

The complaint alleges that the monitoring is in violation of a Student Privacy Pledge that Google signed in 2014, which the EFF said is legally enforceable under the Federal Trade Commission Act.

Comment: Isn't Google's motto "Don't be evil"? Perhaps they don't consider spying to be evil.


Arrow Up

Met Police reports Islamophobic attacks triple in London following Paris attacks

UK Muslim in bus
© Bernadett Szabo / Reuters
Hate crimes against Muslims in London have risen threefold in the wake of the Paris attacks, according to police. British Muslims fear further attacks after MPs voted to extend airstrikes against Islamic State (formerly ISIS/ISIL) from Iraq into Syria.

On November 10, three days before the Paris attacks, 24 hate crimes were reported to police from the previous week. By contrast, 76 were recorded in the week ending November 24.

Islamic communities across the country are fearful of more hostility resulting from parliament's decision to launch airstrikes on Syria.

Speaking to the BBC, Mussurut Zia from Muslim Women's Network UK said the situation in Syria "increased the likelihood of them being targeted."

Comment: For more on this rising phenomenon:


Alarm Clock

NASA-funded study: Over 32 advanced civilizations have collapsed before us, and we're next in line

civilization collapses
As any long-time reader of this column knows, we routinely draw from historical lessons to highlight that this time is not different.

Throughout the 18th century, for example, France was the greatest superpower in Europe, if not the world.

But they became complacent, believing that they had some sort of 'divine right' to reign supreme, and that they could be as fiscally irresponsible as they liked.

The French government spent money like drunken sailors; they had substantial welfare programs, free hospitals, and grand monuments.

They held vast territories overseas, engaged in constant warfare, and even had their own intrusive intelligence service that spied on King and subject alike.

Of course, they couldn't pay for any of this.

French budget deficits were out of control, and they resorted to going heavily into debt and rapidly debasing their currency.

Stop me when this sounds familiar.

Fire

16 killed in Molotov cocktail firebombing on Cairo nightclub

Cairo attack
An apparent firebombing of a nightclub in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, has claimed at least 16 lives, security officials report. Earlier reports said 18 people had been killed.

The attackers tossed multiple Molotov cocktails inside the establishment located at a hotel in the Agouza area near the center of Cairo in the early morning assault, starting a fire, Egyptian media reported.

The Cairo Post newspaper says three masked assailants reportedly carried out the attack.

Six people were injured, according to preliminary estimates.

Cairo police are searching for the perpetrators as a rescue operation continues. An official told Reuters that one of the suspects was an employee of the restaurant that was attacked.

Fire

Major explosion rocks gas refinery in Texas

Orla plant fire
© KWES 9Blast: at least two injured in explosion
More than 250 oil workers escaped injury Thursday morning after an explosion rocked the Anadarko gas refinery near Orla and forced safety workers to evacuate people from a 10-mile radius, officials said.

Only two workers were reported to have minor injuries by late Thursday. The black plume of smoke from the refinery was visible from as far away as the Guadalupe Mountains and the explosion could be felt 25 miles away.

The fire broke out about 9 a.m. at the Ramsey Natural Gas Processing Plant near Orla, about 45 miles away from Carlsbad.

The plant is owned by Western Gas Partners and is operated by Anadarko Petroleum Corporation.

John Christiansen, Anadarko Petroleum Corporation vice president of corporate communications, said in an email Thursday afternoon the fire was still burning into the night, but had diminished and had been contained to one area of the plant. Emergency scanner traffic indicated that firefighters would stay at the site overnight to ensure any remaining fire burned safely.

Vader

Profiteering on back of hysteria: Bulletproof blanket for kids to use during school shootings

Bodyguard Blanket, made by ProTecht
Bodyguard Blanket, made by ProTecht
An Oklahoma company has designed a bullet-resistant blanket that's designed to protect children and teachers in the event of a school shooting.

The Bodyguard Blanket, made by ProTecht, is a bulletproof 5/16-inch pad that the company says is made from the same materials used by the U.S. military.

Steve Walker, a podiatrist who conceptualized the blanket, told The Oklahoman that the idea came to him after two tragedies: the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, and the tornadoes in Oklahoma. He said the idea was to "stop that blunt-force trauma when that rubble is falling down on a child." The company estimates that the blanket can provide protection against 90% of all weapons that have been used in school shootings in the U.S.

Comment: Profiteering on the back of hysteria. Disgusting.


Black Cat 2

Swedish women banned from owning pets for breastfeeding cat

Kitten
© Henrik Montgomery/SCANPIXA kitten not related to the article.
Two Swedish women have been banned from owning animals after authorities found they had treated their cats as makeshift babies with one of them even 'breastfeeding' her pet.

Several anonymous reports prompted animal protection officers from Halland county council to visit the women's homes in the south-western Swedish region this autumn.

It emerged that the pair had pushed their two cats around in pushchairs. They had spoon-fed the cats while keeping them strapped to highchairs, and had also let the animals suck on pacifiers.

One woman also confessed she regularly let her cat suckle on her breast.

Authorities ruled that the pets had been mishandled and had been prevented from exercising natural animal behaviour, wrote Swedish public broadcaster SVT on Thursday.

It was further stated that the women were no longer allowed to own pets. The two cats were taken care of by animal protection officers following a visit to the women's homes.

Cats are among the most popular pets in Sweden, with the country's total feline population estimated to be more than a million.

2 + 2 = 4

Why has the number of mass shootings under Obama skyrocketed compared to the previous four presidents?

Obama mass shootings
We live in a world of short-term memories and long-term memory deficiencies. If the 24-hour news cycle was any indication, Americans appear to be bouncing from one catastrophic mass shooting to the next, with hardly any breathing room. Like this is just a regular occurrence America has learned to endure because... guns. It's the prevalence of firearms in the hands of the people, the anti-gunners say. Calls to limit, rewrite, redefine, or outright dispose of the 2nd Amendment are rampant.

But no one is looking at the data. If they did, they would realize something is really, really, really wrong here.

No, there haven't always been so many mass shootings. It hasn't always been this way. Mass shootings have skyrocketed in this country just in the last seven years under President Obama.

The following was compiled using the database over at Mother Jones on mass shootings in the U.S. from 1982—2015, up to and including the shooting at Umpqua Community College in Oregon on October 1st, 2015. It also includes the Wikipedia lists for mass shootings in the United States by year and postal killings in the U.S.

Comment: There is a pattern to the mass shootings in the US:

1. Witnesses claim to see more than one apparently well-trained shooters. The media initially reports such, but later settles on a different narrative.

2. Police and/or military personnel are often nearby because of simultaneous drills, enabling them to be redirected to the scene of the shootings.

3. The shootings distract from some other big news event - nationally or globally. In the case of the San Bernardino shootings, this could be the series of revelations indicating that NATO member Turkey is funding and protecting ISIS terrorists in and around Syria.

As the truth about the sham that is the US-led 'war on terror' emerges into the mainstream, we can expect ever more senseless mass shootings, while the police state continues to grow in scope and violence - for the people's own good, of course. This is what happens to all empires as they madly grab at everything they can just before they destroy themselves.


Book

New annotated edition of "Mein Kampf" to be in German bookstores for first time since WW II

Hitler
© AFP
A new edition of Adolf Hitler's manifesto Mein Kampf, in which the Austrian-born dictator set out the anti-Semitic and racist ideology behind the Nazi regime, will be published in Germany for the first time since the end of World War II.

The Institute for Contemporary History (IFZ) in Munich announced on Tuesday that they will publish a two-volume, 2,000-page edition in January. Under German law, the book's copyright expires 70 years after Hitler's death—which is the day the Institute plans to present its new annotated version.

IFZ director Andreas Wirsching told AFP that the Institute is publishing the book as an academic work, completely removed from any of the uncritical versions that people can buy in second-hand bookshops. The six-year project, he said, aims to "shatter the myth" surrounding the book.

The institute plans to print up to 4,000 copies of the new version, complete with more than 3,500 academic notes, and have them on Germany's bookstore shelves by early January.

Written in 1923, before Hitler came to power, Mein Kampf was a bestseller in the Nazi era—with more than 12 million copies in circulation between 1933 and 1945—and was translated into 18 languages.

After the war ended in 1945, the Allies determined that the state of Bavaria should obtain the rights. Since then, authorities in the southern German state have refused to allow anyone to republish the book out of respect for victims of the Nazis and to prevent the incitement of hatred.

Until now there have been no new editions of the text, but existing copies have been sold and resold all over the world. In March, an anonymous buyer bought a two-volume set of Mein Kampf, signed by Hitler himself, for $43,750.

While historians welcome the book's publication, Jewish communities remain divided.

Comment: According to the Institute, the new annotated version will be a 'critical commentary' of Mein Kampf. The book is truly a warning from history. If we don't learn from people like Hitler, we will be duped by their lies, delusions and manipulations over and over again.
"How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don't think." - Adolf Hitler
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