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Five facts about the size and makeup of Europe's Muslim population

Conrad Hackett
Pew Research Center
Tue, 19 Jul 2016 00:00 UTC
muslims europe
Recent killings in Paris as well as the arrival of hundreds of thousands of mostly Muslim refugees in Europe have drawn renewed attention to the continent's Muslim population. In many European countries, including France, Belgium, Germany, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, concerns about growing Muslim communities have led to calls for restrictions on immigration. But just how large is Europe's Muslim population, and how fast is it growing?

Using the Pew Research Center's most recent population estimates, here are five facts about the size and makeup of the Muslim population in Europe:

1. Germany and France have the largest Muslim populations among European Union member countries. As of 2010, there were 4.8 million Muslims in Germany (5.8% of the country's population) and 4.7 million Muslims in France (7.5%). In Europe overall, however, Russia's population of 14 million Muslims (10%) is the largest on the continent.
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Stock Up

Pokémon Go launch doubles market value of Nintendo


RT
Fri, 22 Jul 2016 15:31 UTC
PokemonGo
© Toru Hanai / ReutersGrown 'men' play the augmented reality mobile game "Pokemon Go" by Nintendo on their mobile phone as they walk at a busy crossing in Shibuya district in Tokyo, Japan, July 22, 2016.
The phenomenal success of augmented reality mobile game Pokémon Go has doubled the market value of Japanese firm Nintendo which launched the game just two weeks ago. The game's popularity has triggered massive buying in Nintendo shares adding as much as $20 billion to the company's market capitalization which is now at almost $40 billion, even more than Sony. Nintendo shares rose almost seven percent on Friday to 28,220 yen.

"I've never seen the trend of such a big company's shares changing so quickly in such a short period of time," said Takashi Oba, senior strategist at Okasan Securities as cited by the Guardian.

Pokémon Go was first released in Australia and the US on July 6, and is now available in more than 30 countries. The game has become the most successful mobile-based app in US history with 21 million daily active users. On Friday, the game was launched in Japan - the home of the Pokémon characters. Within two hours of the release, dozens of people could be seen playing it around Tokyo railway station.

Comment: You know it's bad when a government agency has to issue a warning about paying attention to tsunamis while playing Pokemon Go. This doesn't exactly jive with 'getting outside and having fun with your friends'. That's just a narrative that these gamers are latching on to excuse such mass dissociation from the world. Welcome to the new unreality.

See: Pokémon Go and mass dissociation: Anchoring the frequency of chaos and destruction

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Ambulance

7 injured after car drives through crowd and crashes into Erawan Shrine in Bangkok


RT
Fri, 22 Jul 2016 15:38 UTC
car crash Erawan Shrine
© AU / YouTube
Footage has emerged showing the moment a car drove into Erawan Shrine in Bangkok, injuring seven people.

The video shows a blue Toyota Soluna tearing through the gate and plowing down a crowd of people before crashing into the shrine at around 8:20pm local time on Friday.

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X

"I ain't voting.": Some Black Lives Matter activists plan to boycott election in November

Leo Hornak
PRI
Wed, 20 Jul 2016 15:28 UTC
Hawk Newsome Black Lives matter
© Leo Hornak/BBCBlack Lives Matter activist Hawk Newsome is calling for people to abstain from voting until the major parties listen to African American concerns.
Hawk Newsome cares deeply about America's presidential election.

He and other activists in the Black Lives Matter movement have this week driven all the way from New York to Cleveland to demonstrate outside the Republican National Convention, couch-surfing with friends along the way. Next week, they'll be doing the same in Philadelphia at the Democratic National Convention.

But one thing that Newsome and his friends say they won't be doing in November is voting. For anyone.

"Neither party has stepped to the front and made Black Lives Matter a priority," he says. "Hillary Clinton has the votes of millions of African Americans in her hands. But she's promoting herself. And the problem is that we are settling [for that]!"

Newsome is leading a new campaign to get African Americans to do something that few civil rights leaders have recommended: stop voting. He believes that only by withdrawing support from the major parties can black communities force politicians to address their concerns about police brutality.

He calls it "I Ain't Voting" — and he says he's aware that it could be seen as a rejection of the struggle that a previous generation went through.
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Camcorder

Democratic delegate's 'sex tape' makes shocking appearance online - FBI investigating


RT
Fri, 22 Jul 2016 15:08 UTC
democrat plaskett sex scandal
© WikipediaStacey Plaskett (D-VI)
A "sex tape" of a Democratic delegate to Congress has leaked online, exposing Stacey Plaskett's intimate moments with her husband. Capitol Police and the FBI to are investigating, as the Virgin Islands politician blames "enemies" hacking her computer.

"I am shocked and deeply saddened that someone would stoop to such a level as to invade my marriage and the love of my family in an attempt to besmirch me politically," Plaskett, the Virgin Islands delegate, said in a statement.

She has confirmed that the "private" content that was briefly shared on a Facebook account were real pictures and "a playful video" showing both her and her husband.

"Private photographs shared between my husband and me, as well as a private playful video of our family, including one of our children, were illegally obtained and disseminated via the internet," Plaskett said.

Comment: Stacey Plaskett is a relatively minor member of Congress and as a convention delegate, she has endorsed Hillary Clinton. So whom did Ms. Plaskett upset?

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Eye 2

New York man accused of holding 81-year-old Marine Corps veteran hostage in motel for 4 years


CBS New York
Thu, 21 Jul 2016 15:02 UTC
Perry Coniglio
© Highlands Police Dept.Perry Coniglio
A New York man is accused of holding an 81-year-old Marine Corps veteran hostage in an upstate motel next door to a police station for at least four years in order to steal his benefits checks.

Perry Coniglio was arrested July 19 in his room adjoining the victim's at the U.S. Academy Motel in Highlands, just feet away from a building housing police and ambulance services in the Hudson Valley town. The charges against Coniglio include grand larceny and unlawful imprisonment.

Police say he used brute force and intimidation to get veteran David McClellan to cooperate with him. Investigators say the victim received three checks every month. The amounts weren't released.

The victim has been taken to a hospital for evaluation.

Conligio faces multiple charges, including criminal possession of a weapon, endangering the welfare of an incompetent person, grand larceny, menacing, unlawful imprisonment and unlawful possession of marijuana.

Coniglio is being held in jail Thursday on $15,000 bail. It's unclear if Coniglio has an attorney.
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Attention

UK military in security panic after RAF base 'abduction attempt'


RT
Fri, 22 Jul 2016 14:55 UTC
RAF soldier
© Luke MacGregor / Reuters
UK military bases are in a state of panic with a number on alert after what appeared to be the attempted abduction of an airman at RAF Marham in Norfolk.

Hours after two men were reported to have tried to bundle an airman who had gone jogging outside camp into a vehicle at knife point on Thursday, an army base in Wiltshire went on high alert after there were reports of three people with a long-barrelled weapon on a local bridge.

Police in the Bulford Camp area sent up a helicopter and deployed armed officers but no people or weapons were spotted.

Marham is home to fighter jet squadrons currently bombing the Middle East, while Bulford is home to the British Army's military police HQ and a number of infantry units.

The suspected Marham kidnappers are still on the run, according to statements from Norfolk police.

Comment: Convenient incident for UK to increase rather than decrease military spending.

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Nuke

Greenpeace: Radiation levels in seabed off Fukushima '100s of times' higher than prior to disaster


RT
Fri, 22 Jul 2016 14:23 UTC
Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Okuma town, Fukushima prefecture, Japan February 10, 2016
© Toru Hanai / ReutersFukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Okuma town, Fukushima prefecture, Japan February 10, 2016
The amount of radioactive substances in seabed off Fukushima is hundreds of times higher than before the disaster, a report issued by Greenpeace reveals. The figures mean that there is absolutely "no return to normal after nuclear catastrophe" in the area.

On Thursday, the environmental group released a report addressing the results of the study during which scientists analyzed radioactivity levels along Fukushima's rivers and in the Pacific seabed off the coast.

"These river samples were taken in areas where the [Prime Minister Shinzo] Abe government is stating it is safe for people to live. But the results show there is no return to normal after this nuclear catastrophe,"said Ai Kashiwagi, Energy Campaigner at Greenpeace Japan.
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Stock Up

Oh the irony: RNC brings massive boost in business to gay sex workers


RT
Fri, 22 Jul 2016 14:15 UTC
bush gannon
Bush with gay prostitute Jeff Gannon. A Republican tradition?
Gay sex workers reported an upsurge in demand during this week's Republican National Convention in Cleveland, while the ladies of the night appeared to miss out on the booming business.

Some male prostitutes claimed to have earned six times more than normal, with female sex workers noting that business has been slower.

Ironic, considering the Republican Party has just passed what has been called the most anti-LGBT platform in its history.

Craigslist was bombarded with a flurry of ads offering gay sex, specifically aimed at RNC attendees, according to The Daily Dot.

It appears that several Republicans have been quick to take male escorts up on their offers, according to the New York Post, which spoke with a number of male prostitutes working in Cleveland during the RNC.

They described the typical client as married and aged between 40 and 50.
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Attention

In the Land of the Free: Cops can say they smelled marijuana to invade private property and hold innocent people hostage

Matt Agorist
The Free Thought Project
Thu, 21 Jul 2016 14:10 UTC
Police forced entry
As animosity toward police reaches a boiling point in America, cops and even police accountability activists continue to ignore the reason for the divide. People are tired of being harassed, extorted, kidnapped, caged, and killed for possessing or ingesting an arbitrary substance that makes them happy that happens to be deemed illegal by the state.

In the United States, 1 out of every 111 citizens is currently in a government cage. Of those 2,224,400 people behind bars, nearly 400,000 of them are locked up for drug violations only.

According to the most recent data in 2014, police arrested 1,561,231 people for drug violations in a single year — 83 percent were possession only. Of that 1.5 million, 700,993 arrests were for marijuana — 88 percent of those arrests were for people possessing the plant only.
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