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Scientology on trial: Will Belgium follow Russia in banning controversial organization?


Sputnik
Sat, 12 Dec 2015 00:37 UTC
Scientology sign
© Janet Lackey/Flickr
A nearly two-month trial of the Church of Scientology's branch in Belgium is coming to a close, with a final verdict on whether the controversial organization will be banned in the country to be announced early next year.

The Church's branch in Belgium is no stranger to fighting fraud and extortion allegations in court. It already survived two major investigations there; one was launched by Belgian authorities in 1997 following former members' accusations of the Church's illegal practices. Another inquiry was triggered in 2008 by an employment agency claiming that the Church had made fake job offers in order to recruit new members.

The most recent charges against eleven members of the church and two affiliated bodies include allegations of running a criminal organization and violating privacy rights. If the Church is convicted of the offences, it could face a total ban in the European nation.

The church's officials claim they represent a peaceful religion and deny all accusations. They argue the charges are meant to defame the Church's reputation.

"You can't explain an investigation this long and of such relentlessness against people who were only trying to peacefully practice their religion in Belgium," the spokesman for the group in Brussels, Eric Roux, told Agence France-Presse.

Federal prosecutor Christophe Caliman has asked the court to completely dissolve the Belgian branch and to levy a fine against it. The court heard final arguments on Friday, with a verdict expected in February.

Comment: Scientology has some pretty dark connections. Belgium would be doing its country a service by following in Russia's footsteps.

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Pistol

LA sheriff's deputies empty their clips into Lynwood man as he crawls away


RT
Sun, 13 Dec 2015 14:05 UTC
LA cops killing man
© Lacey Abotta
Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies have fatally shot a man in Lynwood. Called to the scene because he had a gun, the officers continued firing multiple rounds into the man's back even as he crawled away.

The man was judged to have been acting erratically and there were reports he was firing his gun into the air at a busy intersection in the LA area. An official report, according to the Los Angeles Times, details how the officers responded to the messages of shots being fired at around 11am on Saturday, near the intersection of Long Beach Boulevard and Magnolia Avenue.

Comment: It is sad to think that some police officers look for any excuse to shoot and kill people. There doesn't seem to be any end in sight for this violence.

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Fire

Huge fire kills 22 people at a neurological hospital in central Russia


RT
Sat, 12 Dec 2015 21:43 UTC
Russian hospital fire map
© Google Maps
At least 22 people have been killed and about two dozen injured in a fire at a neurological hospital in Russia's central Voronezh region. Authorities scour the rubble of the wooden structure which was destroyed by the blaze.

Some 70 patients were inside the building, along with at least four medical personnel, when the fire started. At least 29 of the patients were reportedly bedridden or with limited mobility.

Only 57 people have been evacuated from the burning building, according to emergency services working at the scene. Over 20 of them have been hospitalized after suffering injuries. Two of the wounded succumbed to their injuries en route to hospital, an emergency services source told RIA.

One person is still missing, according to the Emergencies Ministry. The authorities continue working at the scene. The roof of the single-story unit collapsed when the fire consumed all 600 square meters of the building.
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Heart - Black

"I don't want to die. This is not my war": A Syrian in France's largest refugee camp speaks out


Democracy Now
Wed, 09 Dec 2015 00:07 UTC
Calais
© www.democracynow.org
Broadcasting from Paris, France, Democracy Now! travels an hour and a half north of the city to Calais, site of the largest refugee camp in the country. Six to seven thousand people are camped out in makeshift tents. Their goal is to reach Britain, and each night members of the camp set out along the highway to the Channel Tunnel, where they attempt to cross into Britain by jumping on top of or inside trucks or lorries.
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Pistol

The number one driver of gun sales in America

Tyler Durden
Zerohedge
Fri, 11 Dec 2015 18:33 UTC
guns being sold
Several days after releasing a historic front-page Op-Ed calling for gun control in the aftermath of the San Bernardino shooting, the NYT decided to actually do the analysis to find out just what it is that drives gun sales.

In an article title "What Drives Gun Sales", the NYT tries to spread the blame around, accusing everything from loose restrictions, to higher handgun sales, to hurricanes, but the real reason is a simple one. It begins with the letter O, ends in bama, and has made the crusade for gun control one of the core prerogatives of its presidency, as the following chart from the NYT itself shows.

Comment: From the White House we hear that:
President Obama's spokesman said Thursday that the record number of Americans seeking to buy guns in recent weeks is "a tragedy" that the White House is at a loss to explain.

"The more that we see this kind of violence on our streets, the more people go out and buy guns," said White House press secretary Josh Earnest. "That is both ironic and tragic."
But what if this is all bullshit? If it is common knowledge that Obama's incessant calls for more control legislation only drive up the purchasing of guns then why keep harping on about more gun control? Could it be that the people who pull the strings behind the White House are that clueless? If this induced demand is intentional, then this begs the question: Why might the puppet masters be manipulating the masses into buying guns (not that having one used judiciously and for protection is necessarily a bad idea)?

Is it possible that the snakes in power anticipate a situation in the US where they actually want a well armed public battling the Police State apparatus and Federal forces? And if so, why? Or, a more simple explantation, the puppet masters still anticipate major social unrest and are trying to do all they can to maintain their positions via their own firepower and therefore really just want less guns available for when that happens - but are going about it in a counterproductive way?

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Stop

Native leader says toxic North Dakota fracking fuels violence Against Women: We are sacrifice zones


Democracy Now
Fri, 11 Dec 2015 18:31 UTC
nd fracking
© bsnorrell.blogspot.com
In bitter cold, North Dakota protests fracking
"What we're dealing with is a death by a thousand cuts," says North Dakota indigenous leader Kandi Mossett of the impact of the booming fracking and oil-drilling industry in her home state.

Comment: See also: Oil pipeline leak causes saltwater and crude oil to spill into Missouri river

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X

Hurriyet Daily News offices 'attacked' in Ankara; explosion destroys glass panels


RT
Sat, 12 Dec 2015 19:47 UTC
Hurriyet offices
© Via twitter@hurriyet
The Ankara offices of major Turkish newspaper, Hurriyet Daily News, have been attacked, the newspaper said, adding that an explosion destroyed some of the building's glass panels.

Several police officers, including anti-terrorist units, have been dispatched to the scene, Hurriyet said. Local authorities immediately launched an investigation into the attack.

Turkish media previously reported that the attack had apparently been carried out from a vehicle that passed by the Hurriyet headquarters in the Turkish capital.

Hurriyet, one of Turkey's main newspapers, was founded in 1948. The network has 52 offices and 600 reporters in Turkey and abroad.

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USA

'We are better than this': Over 700 groups campaign against racism, bigotry and violence

Sarah Lazare
Common Dreams
Thu, 10 Dec 2015 21:47 UTC
American flag
© We Are Better Than This"When public figures demonize whole swaths of people for their own political gain, they are complicit in the escalation from words to deeds that follow," said Heather McGhee, president of Demos.
It is incumbent on every public figure, elected politician, and media outlet to stand up against the "dangerous tide of hatred, violence, and suspicion" taking hold in the United States, over 700 prominent organizations and people declared in a full-page ad in Thursday's New York Times.

"We grieve the many lives that have been lost or painfully transformed in recent weeks through extreme acts of violence. And we are appalled by the surge of divisive rhetoric that sows the seeds of more violence to come," reads the ad, which was organized by the National Domestic Workers Alliance, United We Dream, Center for Community Change, Demos, NARAL Pro-Choice America, Arab-American Association of New York, MPower Change, SEIU, Color of Change, and MoveOn.org.

Signatories warn that, in particular, violence is aimed at "Arab and Muslim Americans, women and the places we seek health care, Black people, immigrants and refugees, or people just going about their daily lives."

Comment: At least some segment of the population can see the ever more dangerous turns this country is taking. Will it be enough to stop Holocaust 2.0?

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Eye 1

Tear gas, water cannons deployed in Leipzig, Germany as neo-Nazi march sparks massive counter rallies


RT
Sat, 12 Dec 2015 20:53 UTC
Water cannon Leipzig
© Via twitter@denice_ruptly
Police have deployed tears gas and water cannon in the German city of Leipzig against crowds of protesters, who were holding a counter rally to a neo-Nazi march. Protesters hurled stones, bottles and fireworks at officers.

About 150 members of different far-right organizations marched through the southern part of Leipzig. They included the neo-Nazi party Die Rechte (the Right), xenophobic organization Offensive für Deutschland (OfD) (Offensive for Germany), and a division of the PEGIDA movement called Thugida.

The right-wing march faced large-scale opposition as about a dozen counter-protests organized by different movements and leftist groups were staged in the city, Der Spiegel reports citing local authorities. Thousands of demonstrators joined the counter protests, according to police sources.

Police mobilized about 800 officers to keep control of the situation. Law enforcers managed to separate the right-wing march and the counter protests, although "massive clashes" broke out between police and the counter protesters. "Some protesters from a group of about 1,000 people attacked police officers deployed to the scene [in the southern part of the city]," police officials said in a twitter post.


Comment: Refugee crisis in Germany - Nazis on the rise - 'Never again' is happening again

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Cardboard Box

Gambia declared an Islamic Republic


Press TV
Sat, 12 Dec 2015 11:22 UTC
Gambia President
© presstv.comGambian president gives the announcement his country is now an official Islamic Republic.
Gambian President Yahya Jammeh has declared the West African country an Islamic republic in a move he described as a break with the colonial past. "In line with the country's religious identity and values, I proclaim Gambia as an Islamic state," Jammeh announced on state television. "As Muslims are the majority in the country, the Gambia cannot afford to continue the colonial legacy," he added.


Comment: President Jammeh hopes to discontinue the use of English as his country's language and substitute a local one or Arabic. Language is the last hold-over from British "colonial legacy."


Jammeh further noted that citizens of other faiths would still be able to practice their religious rituals. Gambia's population of 1.8 million people is 95 percent Muslim. The smallest country in continental Africa gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1965.

In October 2013, Jammeh pulled Gambia out of the Commonwealth, which is an intergovernmental organization of 53 previous colonies of the former British Empire, calling the bloc neo-colonial.


Comment: Gambia gained its independence from the UK in 1964.


This comes as Gambia's relations with the West have also soured over the past few years. Last year, the European Union temporarily suspended its aid money to the West African nation over what it claimed as Banjul's poor human rights record.

Comment: A sovereign decision representative of its constituency and self-determination, it now joins other officially Islamic republics such as Iran and Afghanistan. Out of aid from Western sources, will Jammeh look towards the Arab world for resources?

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