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Confidence Building: BJP launches social media campaign to reach out to minorities


Republic TV
Tue, 24 Dec 2019 19:34 UTC
Modi CAA media campaign
Hours after Prime {Minister} Narendra Modi gave an in depth clarification on the federal government's stand concerning the Nationwide Register of Residents (NRC) from the Ramlila Maidan, the Bharatiya Janata Celebration (BJP) has launched an enormous public consciousness marketing campaign on the social media and thru its cadres to achieve out to the Muslim neighborhood and dispel their doubts on the difficulty.

The BJP's clarification has been necessitated after a slew of protests broke out throughout the nation, just a few of which additionally witnessed violence. The CAA and NRC have develop into emotive points among the many Muslim neighborhood. Sources acknowledged it is for that reason that the federal government and the BJP have determined to achieve out to the neighborhood to dispel any myths concerning the difficulty. The CAA grants Indian citizenship to non-Muslims who entered the nation from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan until December 31, 2014.

Comment: Mean while, a German student who was studying at IIT-Madras was asked to leave the nation for participating in the Anti-CAA protests in violation of his visa terms.
A second source told ThePrint that a "discreet inquiry" was initiated against Lindenthal after they received complaints about him carrying a poster that said, '1933 to 1945; We Have Been There', pointing to Nazi rule in Germany.

The source also said officials from FRRO did visit Lindenthal after they found out about his alleged proximity to a Marxist group, Chinta Bar, which organised the protest at IIT-Madras. The source said the officials asked him about the purpose of his visit, checked his document and asked him why was he at the protest.

The official, however, said they did not ask Lindenthal to "leave the country" and also did not give him anything in writing.

"He was told that he has committed a violation and his visa could be cancelled. He then told us that he had already booked tickets because he was anyway leaving for home for Christmas," the source said.

Speaking to The Indian Express, however, Lindenthal said he was given "oral directions" to leave the country and so he returned to his hostel, booked his tickets and left.


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Newspaper

Periodic Exercise: India approves funds for census and population survey

Aftab Ahmed
Reuters
Tue, 24 Dec 2019 00:00 UTC
India's national population register exercise
India's federal cabinet approved funds on Tuesday for a census and population survey to be conducted in 2020, amid fears that the database could be used to build a controversial citizens register that has been opposed by hundreds of thousands of people who have taken to the streets.

The government approved 87.54 billion rupees ($1.23 billion) for conducting the census and 39.41 billion rupees for updating the National Population Register (NPR).

The census collects data on population, economy activity, social and cultural aspects, migration and demography, down to the lowest administrative level.

Comment: While talking to media, Indian home minister clarified that no documents needs to be submitted for NPR. He mentioned:
  • People can submit the information in Govt. created App.
  • The information asked in NPR is not useful for NRC and both are based on different constitutional laws. This needs to be done with census as it is done in 2011.
  • it is used for planning of development programs( like education, gas, toilets, housing etc.) that benefit the citizens.
  • This is standard procedure that had been done in many states before and needs update every decade (to accomodate people's life changes -deaths, births, movement from one state to other etc.)
  • Some of the information gathered is needed for the activity of mapping the houses to be started in April 2020. There is no change in the time table and it is as per the plan.
  • CAA mainly impacts states adjacent to Bangladesh( West Bengal and North Eastern states). But, the protests in other states is created by opposition parties for their politics. There is no provision to remove the citizenship in CAA.


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Fire

Sweden: The wages of self-loathing is civil war

David Archibald
American Thinker
Thu, 19 Dec 2019 00:00 UTC
Sweden civil war
The Danes have put extra resources into controlling the country's links to Sweden because of bombs going off in Denmark due to people coming from Sweden. The people from Sweden are Islamist criminals. The Swedish government reacted to the Danish move by calling the Danes Nazis. Swedish society has changed for the worse, and the Swedish people are aware of what they have lost.

All this is known, but what is interesting is that a former head of the Swedish truck-maker Scania, a Mr. Leif Ostling, has said Sweden is headed for civil war because of the problem of its violent migrants who have no inclination to integrate into Swedish society. As a successful businessman, his views can't be dismissed as being from some sort of antisocial loon living in his mother's basement.

This raises the question: how do you have a civil war in this day and age? Having a civil war is aspirational, but is it achievable?

The population of Sweden is now 10.1 million, of which 8% are of the Islamist persuasion. The first question is, who owns the guns, and how many are there?

This site says civilians in Sweden are estimated to hold 2,296,000 guns, legally and illegally, of which about half are rifles. There is a big hunting tradition in Sweden. As of the year 2011, licenced firearms per 100 head of population was 6.5, and registered guns per 100 people was 18.9. So the average gun-owner has three of them.

Comment: See: Triumph of the right in Sweden is a result of the total failure of liberalism

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Eye 1

Smart home tech, police, and your privacy: Year in review 2019

Matthew Guariglia
Electronic Frontier Foundation
Sat, 21 Dec 2019 00:00 UTC
smart tech
If 2019 confirmed anything, it is that we should not trust the microphones and cameras that large corporations sell us to put inside and near our homes. Thanks to the due diligence of reporters, public records requesters, and privacy researchers and activists, consumers have been learning more and more about how these "smart" home technologies can be hacked, exploited, or utilized by the police and other law enforcement agencies.

Because many technologies that record audio and video store their data on a cloud maintained by the company, police can gain access to stored content by presenting a warrant to those companies — bypassing consumers altogether. For instance, in November, police in Florida obtained a warrant for the recordings from an Amazon Echo that may have overheard a crime. This means that whether people think their Alexa is listening or not, their Alexa could be listening. Because Amazon stores and maintains that data, things said in the device's presence can be made accessible to police via a warrant presented to the company.

Law enforcement's access isn't the only concern associated with smart speakers. Researchers recently learned you could hack an Alexa or Google Home by shooting a laser at it.
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Star

Syrian army liberates new areas in Idlib province

Drago Bosnic
Fort Russ News
Tue, 24 Dec 2019 00:00 UTC
Syrian arab army
The Syrian army continued operations against the terrorist groups stationed in southeastern Idlib on Monday, and regained control over several new regions. A Syrian military source told the Arabic-language service of Sputnik news agency that three other villages have been freed from the terrorists in the eastern and southeastern parts of the town of Ma'arat al-No'eman in Idlib.
"Seyedi Ali and Ja'afar regions and the two towns of Fa'aloul and Kharbat Ma'arat in eastern Idlib were recaptured by the Syrian army on Monday," the source said.
Meanwhile, reports from southern Idlib said that militants have blocked efforts to open a safe corridor for the evacuation of civilians in southern Idlib in a move to take people hostage and use them as a shield against army attacks as Ma'arat al-No'eman, one of the terrorists' main strongholds in the region, could fall to the government troops fast.
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Pistol

Royal prerogative: Saudi court sentences 5 commoners to death for Jamal Khashoggi murder

John Bacon
USA Today
Mon, 23 Dec 2019 05:09 UTC
Khashoggi
© AFP/Ozan Kose
Murdered Journalist Jamal Khashoggi
A Saudi Arabian court on Monday sentenced five people to death but placed no blame on the royal family for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist working for The Washington Post when he was killed in Istanbul last year.

The prosecutor's office in Riyadh announced the sentences, saying the five were guilty of "committing and directly participating in the murder." Three other defendants were sentenced to a total of 24 years, the prosecutor's office said.

Khashoggi, a frequent critic of the Saudi ruling family, was living in self-exile in Turkey when he entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2, 2018, in search of paperwork related to his planned marriage. He was never seen again, and his body was never found.

The court rulings drew scorn from Agnes Callamard, a U.N. special rapporteur whose inquiry into the murder resulted in a damning report targeting Saudi Arabia's royal family.

"Bottom line: the hit-men are guilty, sentenced to death. The masterminds not only walk free, they have barely been touched by the investigation and the trial," Callamard tweeted after the sentences were announced. "That is the antithesis of Justice. It is a mockery."


Comment: Khashoggi's fiancee wants answers:



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Star of David

Issawiya: East Jerusalem neighborhood on frontline of Israeli occupation

Miriam Deprez
Mondoweiss
Mon, 23 Dec 2019 00:00 UTC
Israeli forces
© Muhammed Qarout Idkaidek/APA
Israeli forces on guard as bulldozer demolishes buildings in Issawiya, 17/12/2019
It's been six months of unrest in Issawiya. Excessive police brutality and indiscriminate daily raids by Israeli forces with no justification have left residents of the East Jerusalem district exhausted - and there is no end in sight.

"What's been happening is very violent police raids, by very violent policemen who lack any values," Ahmad Adam Masri, an Issawiya local described of the campaign that residents say is the most brutal and prolonged in living memory. "What goes on in the alleys of Issawiya is oppression, is suffering, is injustice and we've been tolerating it for six months."

Since June, dozens of heavily armed soldiers from the border and riot police units have entered Issawiya almost every evening, staking out positions around the district under the pretext of security.
Issawiya
© Hazem Bader/AFP
Palestinians throw stones during clashes with Israeli police in Jerusalem’s neighborhood of Issawiya on June 28, 2019, a day after a Palestinian was shot and killed by police during a protest in the same neighborhood.
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Attention

Pentagon's warning to military: DNA kits pose 'personal and operational risks'

Jenna McLaughlin, Zach Dorfman
Yahoo News
Mon, 23 Dec 2019 00:00 UTC
Home DNA kits
© Eric Baradat/AFP/Smith Collection/Getty Images
Home DNA kits
The Pentagon is advising members of the military not to use consumer DNA kits, saying the information collected by private companies could pose a security risk, according to a memo co-signed by the Defense Department's top intelligence official.

A growing number of companies like 23andMe and Ancestry sell testing kits that allow buyers to get a DNA profile by sending in a cheek swab or saliva sample. The DNA results provide consumers information on their ancestry, insights into possible medical risks and can even identify previously unknown family members.

The boom in popularity of such kits has raised ethical and legal issues, since some companies have shared this data with law enforcement or sold it to third parties. The Defense Department is now expressing its own concerns about these kits.

"Exposing sensitive genetic information to outside parties poses personal and operational risks to Service members," says the Dec. 20 memo signed by Joseph D. Kernan, the undersecretary of defense for intelligence, and James N. Stewart, the assistant secretary of defense for manpower.

Comment: As mentioned: DOD memo on DNA testing by Sharon Weinberger on Scribd

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Padlock

18 months in Israeli prison, a Gaza fisherman finally returns home

Abdallah Abusamra, Pam Bailey
Mondoweiss
Tue, 24 Dec 2019 00:00 UTC
Suhail al-Amoudi
© Unknown
Suhail al-Amoudi with his grandson Mohammed after returning home.
This essay is by a writer with We Are Not Numbers in Gaza.

A largely forgotten casualty of the Great Return March protests in the Gaza Strip quietly returned home last November after serving 18 months in an Israeli prison. Suhail al-Amoudi, 58, was a captain in the Freedom Boats 2, commanding one of three vessels in a flotilla that sought to break the Israeli naval blockade around Gaza.
"I sailed because the flotilla was meant to send a message to the whole world — that Palestinians can no longer stand the Israeli blockade. And if another flotilla were to try it again, I'd do it again, despite the price I paid. We shouldn't give up protesting until we regain all of our rights."
Al-Amoudi has fished Gaza's sea for 35 years, during which he was attacked several times by the Israeli navy despite staying within whatever limits were imposed at the time. The Israeli government constantly changes the zone in which it allows fishermen to ply the waters without being shot or having their boats confiscated. In fact, from the start of 2019 to date, Israel has implemented 15 changes in the "no-go" zone it enforces off Gaza's coast. These restrictions contradict regulations from the Oslo Accords, signed by the Palestinian and Israeli leadership in 1993. According to the agreement, Gaza's fishermen should be allowed to sail a distance of 20 nautical miles from the coast — where the best fish are found.
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Blackbox

'Role play'? Swedish school forces pupils to recite Muslim prayer in Arabic - reports


Sputnik
Tue, 24 Dec 2019 18:05 UTC
koran
© AFP 2019 / JEAN-SEBASTIEN EVRARD
When angry parents contacted the school in Kalmar County in southern Sweden, its authorities said it was merely "role-play".

Fifth-grade pupils in Bjurbäcksskolan, Emmaboda Municipality had to participate in a religion lesson, where they kneeled on prayer mats facing Mecca and worshipped Allah in Arabic, the news outlet Samhällsnytt reported.

The class was also reportedly divided by gender and the girls had to move to the back of the room.

"Today my girls came home from school and told me that they were forced to lie on prayer mats and pray in Arabic. The girls had to be in the back of the classroom. Then they would dance to Arabic music and eat Arabic cake. My girls did not even want to be there because they could not understand a word of what the teacher read from the Quran in Arabic", an angry parent who called himself Markus told Samhällsnytt.

According to Markus, some students brought their own mats. The teacher distributed mats to the students who did not have their own. The pupils would be facing the Kaaba, the centrepiece of the Great Mosque of Mecca.

When confronted by parents, school authorities said it was "role-playing".
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