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The Scar of Bethlehem: Banksy's new nativity work features Israel's wall that imprisons Palestinians


Sputnik
Sun, 22 Dec 2019 02:57 UTC
banksy
© AFP 2019 / Thomas Coex
The mysterious artist Banksy, known best for graffiti found around the world that often addresses global resource inequality and authoritarian governments, has unveiled his latest work - a sculpture.

Titled 'The Scar of Bethlehem,' Banksy's latest depicts a nativity scene with Mary, Joseph and a baby Jesus. Above the trio, however, where the biblical Star of Bethlehem is typically located, a star-shaped bullet hole is displayed in what appears to be a section of Israel's enormous concrete and steel barrier on the West Bank. The wall between Israel and Palestinian territories is easily recognizable by its trademark tall, narrow segments with holes at the top.

"It is a nativity. Banksy has his own contribution to Christmas," hotel manager Wissam Salsaa told AFP. "It is a great way to bring up the story of Bethlehem, the Christmas story, in a different way — to make people think more."

Comment: See also: Also check out SOTT radio's:

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People 2

College hosts free speech training after harassment of conservative group

Jeremiah Poff
The College Fix
Wed, 18 Dec 2019 07:23 UTC
free speech
After a College of Lake County adviser hung flyers accusing a conservative club on campus of being a hate group, the Illinois school hosted free speech trainings for faculty and staff.

In November, an employee of the college hung flyers stating "hate groups are not welcome here" and other materials accusing Young Americans for Freedom of being a hate group.

YAF student Chairman Rob Corn said in a Facebook post: "I've been going to this school for two years, and this isn't anything new. The intolerance of the left on our campus is rampant."

But after the incident, the college hosted free speech training sessions.

"A student activities director told Corn that the first question discussed at these sessions was whether or not the YAF chapter was a hate group, to which the school's lawyers affirmed that the chapter was NOT a hate group, and has every right to exist on campus," YAF reported in a news release.

Comment: About time colleges did something a bit more useful, as opposed to things like "inclusivity training" or creating "safe spaces". See also:

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Oil Well

Climate activists are "nearly run over" trying to stop coal-laden freight train

Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge
Tue, 17 Dec 2019 13:45 UTC
climate protesters

Protesters in Massachusetts in a prior Dec.8 incident attempting to flag down a coal train to stop it. Image source: 350 New Hampshire Action via WBUR.
The "end of the world" apocalyptic hyper-gloom-and-doom rhetoric of Greta Thunberg and other self-anointed climate prophets are leading followers to take greater and greater risks in attempts at "staving off climate disaster" — increasingly endangering themselves and public safety.

As a case in point, climate activists in the northeast United States have for the past month been physically trying to halt coal-filled freight trains, in some cases by literally jumping on the tracks. As Fox News reports of the latest dangerous incident caught on video:
An environmental reporter in Massachusetts posted a video on Twitter late Monday that she said showed a freight train hauling coal being met with a group of climate change activists on a dark track.

The train was seen moving slowly through Worchester, Mass., and about a dozen activists with small lights could be seen surrounding the tracks. The train's horn was blaring, but the activists appeared to continue to give it chase. The train was headed to New Hampshire, the reporter wrote.

Comment: See also:

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Eye 1

Vegan couple who fed children only raw fruit and veg charged with murder after baby dies from starvation

Matt Drake
The Independent
Sat, 21 Dec 2019 07:51 UTC
vegan parents
© NBC2
Couple's other three children were also extremely malnourished, according to reports
A vegan couple who fed their children only raw fruits and vegetables have been charged with murder after their son allegedly died of starvation.

The Florida couple, Ryan Patrick O'Leary, 30, and Sheila O'Leary, 35, told police they only fed their children on a diet of raw fruit and vegetables. On Wednesday, a Lee County Grand Jury indicted the couple.

They are charged with first-degree murder, aggravated child abuse, aggravated manslaughter, child abuse, and two counts of child neglect after their 18-month-old son starved to death, according to authorities.

According to a Cape Coral police report, the child weighed only 17 pounds (8 kilograms), which experts say is in line with what a seven-month-old should weigh.

The mother called 911 in September when she noticed her son was not breathing and felt cold. She tried to resuscitate the baby, but he was dead when paramedics arrived, according to the News-Press.

Comment: See also:

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Propaganda

Malaysian PM's statement on Indian citizenship 'factually incorrect': MEA


The Hindu
Sun, 22 Dec 2019 04:59 UTC
Malaysia's Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad
© Reuters
MEA said that Malaysia should refrain from commenting on the internal developments of India

The External Affairs Ministry on Friday termed as "factually incorrect" remarks reportedly made by Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's that India is taking action to deprive some Muslims of their citizenship.

The ministry also said Malaysia should refrain from commenting on the internal developments of India, especially without a right understanding of the facts.

Comment: Indian PM Modi summons ministers as death toll rises in ongoing protests against India citizenship act
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will reportedly consult with his ministers about the security situation in India, following nationwide protests against a new citizenship law that have left up to seventeen people dead.

The turmoil over the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) will be a top agenda item when Modi meets with government officials on Saturday, an unnamed government official told Reuters.

The Indian government says the new citizenship law is aimed at protecting persecuted religious minorities from Muslim-majority Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Critics call the legislation discriminatory against Muslims. However, the Ministry of Home Affairs reassured on Thursday that CAA does not "target any religious community from abroad".
More than 20 people are killed in the violence related Citizenship Amendment Act that is passed by the Indian Parliament. 18 people were killed in the largest indian state of Uttar Pradesh(UP). UP police claimed that majority of deaths due to firing from protestors.
The Uttar Pradesh Police held anti-CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act) protesters responsible for the death of 18 people in violence since Thursday. More than 1,000 rounds were fired by protestors, they claimed on Saturday.

Police said that 405 empty cartridges, fired by protesters, have been recovered till now. The autopsies of the 18 dead reveal that most of the deceased were hit by these country made bullets, they claimed.


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Che Guevara

Fed up: Swedish Communists launch new Workers' Party without multiculturalism, LGBT or Greta Thunberg


Sputnik
Fri, 20 Dec 2019 02:09 UTC
sweden communists

Communist Party worker smashing capitalism
Not only do the defectors regard these phenomenons as having been "rammed down workers' throats" by the establishment, but they also want to discard the name "Communist" as "drawn down to the dirt".

Almost half of the members of the Communist Party in Malmö are resigning. Instead, they plan establish a new workers' party that doesn't put as much emphasis on things like multiculturalism, LGBT issues and climate alarmism, which have become the staples and rallying calls of today's left.

Nils Littorin, one of the defectors, explained to Lokaltidningen that today's left has become part of the elite and has come to "dismiss the views of the working class as alien and problematic". Littorin suggested that the left, as a movement, is going through a prolonged identity crisis and that his group, instead, intends to stick to the original values, such as class warfare.
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X

Iranian journalist gets imprisoned and fired for one accidental word


Committee to Protect Journalists
Wed, 11 Dec 2019 20:36 UTC
Pouyan Khoshhal
© Pouyan Khoshhal
Iranian journalist Pouyan Khoshhal, pictured, fled his home country after being detained for over two months and later sentenced to six years in prison over a single word.
In October 2018, authorities arrested Pouyan Khoshhal as he drove through the northern Iranian city of Rasht, by the Caspian Sea. The reason for the journalist's arrest: his use of the word "death" instead of "martyrdom" to describe a Shiite saint in an article for the reformist newspaper Ebtekar.

Authorities had summoned Khoshhal on several occasions over his work, including a piece about babies born to imprisoned women. But despite Ebtekar correcting the article the following day and issuing a statement announcing that it had dismissed the journalist, authorities detained Khoshhal for two months, including 10 days in solitary confinement. When he was released on bail, guards ordered him to quit journalism and move away if "[he] wanted a quiet life," Khoshhal said.

On December 15, 2018, the judiciary charged Khoshhal with "encouraging the public to commit crimes against Islamic values," "insulting Islamic values," and "insulting the divinity of Imam Hussein and other members of the Prophet's blessed family."


Comment: There's a special place in hell for censors, bureaucrats, and - worse - religious-censor-bureaucrats. Not only do they completely lack any sense of humor, they also lack any sense of proportionality, ability to see context, and just plain common sense. Unfortunately, any advice, such as "get a life and get the hell over it", inevitably falls on deaf ears. The only hope is that some day they will be out of a job.


Ultimately, he was sentenced to six years in prison, a verdict that Tehran's Appeal Court upheld on July 9, 2019, with neither Khoshhal or his lawyer present. Fearing for his life and unwilling to serve such a harsh sentence over a single published word, Khoshhal said that he fled into exile.


Comment: It should be the censors serving jail terms, not the other way around.


Iran's repressive treatment of journalists has led many to go into exile. Most independent journalists find the choices stifling: work for censored state-run outlets or risk being imprisoned for their work. After fleeing Iran, often having to cross borders illegally or slip away while on trips abroad — like Iranian state news agency journalist Amir Tohid Fazel, whose escape on a government trip to Sweden in August was reported by CNN — they are presented with new challenges including proving the threats against them when applying for asylum and being able to continue work as a journalist.
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Arrow Down

Another Pakistani sentenced to death for being convicted of blasphemy


RFE/RL Radio Mashal
Sat, 21 Dec 2019 11:14 UTC
blasphemy case Multan Pakistan

Pakistani police officers stand guard outside Multan jail after a court's decision for a professor facing blasphemy case, in Multan, Pakistan, Saturday, Dec. 21, 2019.
A Muslim professor in Pakistan has been sentenced to death after being convicted of blasphemy.

A court in Multan on December 21 found Junaid Hafeez guilty of spreading anti-Islamic ideas.

Pakistan's controversial blasphemy law carries an automatic death penalty for anyone accused of insulting God, Islam, or religious figures.

Defense attorney Shahbaz Gormani said he would appeal the verdict, stating his client had been wrongly convicted.

Hafeez was also fined half a million Pakistani rupees (over $3,200) on December 21.

Police arrested Hafeez in 2013 for allegedly displaying blasphemous content while a visiting professor at Bahauddin Zakariya University in the city of Multan, which is located in central Punjab Province.
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Arrow Down

Moscow slams Western bias and double standards for ruining TWO UNSC resolutions on humanitarian aid for Syria


RT
Sat, 21 Dec 2019 19:47 UTC
humanitarian aid syria
As the mainstream media pounds Moscow for "vetoing aid for Syria," Russia's UN mission says there was no winner in the latest UN battle during which its own draft resolution was defeated by "bias and double standards."

The Russian mission to the UN has offered their take on two rival resolutions on Syria which the Security Council rejected during a contentious Friday vote.

One, drafted by Belgium, Germany, and Kuwait, sought to extend the shipping of aid into Syria through three checkpoints - two in Turkey and one in Iraq - for the next year. But the scheme, adopted five years ago without Damascus' consent, became irrelevant by 2019, the Russian delegation argued.

Delivering aid from Turkey and Iraq was justifiable, although legally questionable, back then because many Syrians civilians lived in hard-to-reach areas controlled by terrorists, Vassily Nebenzia, the Russian ambassador to the UN, explained later.

Now, Damascus is robust enough to distribute supplies on their own - and bypassing government checkpoints would be a sign of disrespect for the country's sovereignty as "we live in 2019, not in 2014."

Comment: No surprise here - the US has been spitefully hindering aid to Syrian citizens for years, while Russia somehow manages to insure needed assistance is delivered - over and over again!

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Handcuffs

Ex-FBI official Mark Tolson gets mere 7 days jail for hacking emails of anti-Mueller activist

Josh Gerstein
Politico
Fri, 20 Dec 2019 21:13 UTC
Jack Burkman and Mark Tolson
A former FBI analyst was sentenced to seven days in jail and a $500 fine Friday for illegally accessing a neighbor's email account in a bid to head off an apparent smear campaign against special counsel Robert Mueller.

Mark Tolson, 60, pleaded guilty in September to a single misdemeanor charge of computer fraud and abuse for his unusual effort last fall to derail eccentric Washington lobbyist Jack Burkman's attempt to obtain information to be used in sexual misconduct allegations against Mueller.

Tolson admitted he unlawfully accessed Burkman's emails in October 2018, after the conspiracy-minded lobbyist announced plans to hold a news conference to air sexual harassment allegations against Mueller.

After snooping through Burkman's account, Tolson sent screenshots of the messages and offered the password to an unspecified journalist, court filings say.

Comment: One wonders how much sympathy and how lenient sentencing would have been had Tolson been working against Mueller?

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