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Thousands of Germans protest government military policies, NATO's confrontation with Russia over Syria

German anti-war protest syria
© Ruptly
Thousands of anti-war demonstrators came out for a rally in Berlin over the weekend to protest the growing militarization of German policies and NATO's confrontation with Russia over Syria.

On Saturday, protesters marched from Alexanderplatz to the Brandenburg Gate, where the demonstration continued with several speeches. German police estimated the number of participants at over 5,000, while the organizers said between 6,000 and 8,000 showed up.

Protesters said resources wasted on war would be better spent making life better for the people, demanding that Berlin scale down its military budget, withdraw its troops from all foreign missions, and stop selling arms to other governments.

Attention

Four buildings collapse in eastern China; cause unknown and at least 8 dead

china building collapse
© Stringer / Reuters
Rescue workers search at the site where residential buildings collapsed in Wenzhou, Zhejiang province, China, October 10, 2016.
At least eight people have been confirmed dead, five have been rescued, and some 20 are thought to be trapped under the rubble of four multi-story buildings that collapsed early Monday morning in the city of Wenzhou in China's eastern Zhejiang province.

The buildings buckled at about 4:30 am local time (20:30 GMT) in the city's industrial Lucheng district. There is no information as to the cause of the disaster so far.

A massive rescue operation is underway with over 600 people involved, local media report.

Authorities haves dispatched heavy machinery to the site to remove the debris and search for survivors. At least 17 ambulances have been called to the site to take the injured to local medical facilities.

Cult

Facebook's cult-like working atmosphere laid bare by former employee

zuckerberg

Probe …Mark Zuckerberg rings the Nasdaq opening bell from Facebook headquarters
Social network's bizarre office environment laid bare as insider reveals secrets of Mark Zuckerberg's empire

The bizarre working atmosphere at Facebook has been laid bare in a no-holds-barred memoir of life at the heart of Mark Zuckerberg's empire.

Antonio Garcia Martinez, a tech entrepreneur turned author, has published a book called Chaos Monkeys which gives frank details of what it's like to have a job with Facebook.

In an extract published by Business Insider, he described a cult-like corporate atmosphere where workers wore Facebook t-shirts and even circulated images of their children dressed in "children wearing a Facebook onesie as their social media debut". He described the atmosphere as "corporate fascism" and described his fellow workers as "Blueshirts".

Martinez wasn't suggesting that Facebook workers are goosestepping Nazis hellbent on world domination, but was referring to fascists' tendency to bow down to leaders and subsume themselves within a social or corporate structure.

Cult

Сhildren stranded in Calais 'Jungle' camp thanks to British bureaucracy - Red Cross

Pascal Rossignol/Reuters
© Pascal Rossignol/Reuters
The UK has been refusing to take in unaccompanied refugee minors stranded in France's Calais 'Jungle' camp, preventing them from being reunited with families there, according to the British Red Cross. The camp is weeks away from demolition by French authorities.

In a report entitled "No Place for Children," the British Red Cross has struck out at UK Home Office bureaucracy that is causing unaccompanied children to be stranded and in danger of losing all protection and shelter once the Jungle is finally dismantled.

There are currently some 1,000 unaccompanied children in the camp, with at least 178 of them eligible to go to the UK, thanks to existing family ties there, says the report.

But the process of sending children from the camp to the UK is very sluggish, with 10-11 months taken to process just one child under the EU law known as Dublin III, which governs the establishment of criteria and mechanisms for deciding which member state will process the asylum application.

Megaphone

Estonia to impose total smoking ban throughout all prisons

 Kai Pfaffenbach/Reuters
© Kai Pfaffenbach/Reuters
Smoking will be banned in all prisons across Estonia from October 1, 2017, according to a decree signed by the Estonian justice minister.

"The smoking ban in prisons applies to both prisoners, detainees and the staff in order to protect health and promote safety and order," Justice Minister Urmas Reinsalu said in a statement, Interfax reported.

All forms of tobacco products and other smoking paraphernalia will be included on the list of items forbidden in prisons.

The restriction outlaws smoking both inside the prison buildings and outside on prison territory.

Galaxy

Nine-year-old who's already going to college wants to become an astrophysicist and prove the existence of God

William Maillis
A child genius in Pennsylvania is studying to be an astrophysicist so he can become the person who finally proves the existence of God. Nine-year-old William Maillis graduated from high school in May and is now attending a community college as he develops his theories as to how the universe was created.

Via People:
William, who lives in Penn Township, Pennsylvania, is among the youngest people ever to attend college.

He's currently taking a full slate of classes at Community College of Allegheny County as a way to ease into life as a college student and plans to enroll next fall at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, according to his father, Peter Maillis, a Greek Orthodox priest.

"It doesn't bother me" being the youngest student in class by far, William tells People. "I'm used to it by now."

William, who wants to study the physics and chemistry of space, earn a doctorate degree and work as an astrophysicist, is at ease tossing around concepts like "displacement of space-time" "singularity" and "pure gravity" as he patiently attempts to explain why black holes aren't "super massive" as theorized by such other brilliant minds as Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking.

Bottom line, according to William: "I want to prove to everybody that God does exist," he says, by showing that only an outside force could be capable of forming the cosmos."

Comment: GOOOOOOOOO William!!!


Eye 1

15,000 Islamist radicals under constant surveillance by French intelligence

surveillance
© AFP 2016/Philippe Desmazes
At least 15,000 people are on a French database of individuals suspected of involvement in Islamist terror networks or radicalism, French newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche reported on Saturday.

At least 15,000 people in France are thought to pose a terror threat and are under the surveillance of the security services, French newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche reported on Saturday.

The suspects have been placed on France's FSPRT database of individuals suspected of involvement in terrorism or radicalization, created in March 2015. The database is managed by France's UCLAT unit for the co-ordination of the fight against terrorism.

Around 2,500 terror suspects and radicals are under surveillance without any further action taken against them, and over 2,000 of those on the list are known to be members of a terrorist network. About 4,000 of those on the list are considered high-risk and are being watched by France's General Directorate for Internal Security intelligence agency.

Comment: Have the French authorities ever given thought to the fact that all this surveillance (as opposed to getting to the real roots of terrorism), may in fact be exacerbating the problem? Well, at least one has. A little bit. Justice minister claims 1,300 French prisoners became radicalized while in jail


Tornado1

Seeing 'nothing to live for' as Haiti asseses the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew - UPDATE

hurricane Matthew surviovor
© Orlando Barria/European Pressphoto Agency
Days after Hurricane Matthew struck Haiti, a mother sought shelter Saturday in Les Cayes.
The loss in this coastal town is all but entire. Dead animals float in tidal pools. Cinder-block heaps mark where homes once stood. Trees, stripped of leaves, branches and tops, impale the earth like ragged posts.

But the loss here runs deeper. The local hospital has registered 13 deaths since Hurricane Matthew flung 145-mile-per-hour winds and a wall of water at Port-Salut, but many more have died without so much as an official word.

Comment: Nearly 900 killed and 350,000 in need of urgent aid in hurricane-stricken Haiti (VIDEOS)

Update: The death toll has passed 1000, and the authorities are resorting to mass graves to bury all the dead. At least 13 have died in a cholera outbreak in Matthew's aftermath.


Handcuffs

Justice minister claims 1,300 French prisoners became radicalized while in jail

French prison
© Charles Platiau / Reuters
At least 1,300 France citizens imprisoned on common criminal charges have become radicalized in jail, according to France's justice minister, who said that some 340 people in French prisons have been convicted on terrorism-related charges.

There are currently "340 people prosecuted [in France] on charges related to terrorism" in French prisons, French Justice Minister Jean-Jacques Urvoas said in an interview with Europe 1 radio on Sunday.

However, he said that didn't include those who have become radicalized in prison.
"There are people who have been imprisoned, according to common criminal law, and then became radicalized in prison.... Now I can tell you a figure with high degree of accuracy - 1,300 people."

Info

US soldiers resisting Obama's support of Al Qaeda

Photo of US navy person holding sign
As is by now well-known, the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency's previously classified 2012 report on the origin of the Islamic insurgency against Bashar al-Assad was released to the public on 18 May 2015, and it revealed the Obama Administration's knowledge, at least since that time, that "the Salafist [Saudi-backed fundamentalist Sunni Islamic], the Muslim Brotherhood [Qatari-backed fundamentalist Sunni Islamic] and AQI [Al Qaeda in Iraq] are the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria", and acknowledgement that "the West, Gulf countries [Saudi Arabia and Qatar mainly], and Turkey support the opposition [to Bashar al-Assad], while Russia, China, and Iran support the regime", so that the U.S. Government is, in fact, allied with Al Qaeda there, to overthrow Assad.

This pro-Al-Qaeda position was news, however, to America's military personnel in that region.