Islamic State claims Paris attacks

Islamic State claimed responsibility on Saturday for a coordinated assault by gunmen and bombers that killed 127 people at locations across Paris that President Francois Hollande said amounted to an act of war against France.

In the worst attack, a Paris city hall official said four gunmen systematically slaughtered at least 87 young people at a rock concert at the Bataclan concert hall before anti-terrorist commandos launched an assault on the building. Dozens of survivors were rescued, and bodies were still being recovered on Saturday morning.

Some 40 more people were killed in five other attacks in the Paris region, the official said, including an apparent double suicide bombing outside the Stade de France national stadium, where Hollande and the German foreign minister were watching a friendly soccer international.

The assaults came as France, a founder member of the U.S.-led coalition waging air strikes against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, was on high alert for terrorist attacks.

It was the worst such attack in Europe since the Madrid train bombings of 2004, in which 191 died.

The FBI has said it is now investigating the San Bernardino shooting in the US state of California as a "terrorist" attack, adding that it had uncovered new evidence.

David Bowdich, assistant director of the FBI's Los Angeles office, also said the attackers tried to destroy evidence - crushing two cell phones and throwing them in a rubbish bin.

Upon reading the original source documents of Islam—the Quran, hadith, biographies, and histories—one is struck by the casual and matter-of-fact way that Muhammad and his Muslims traffic in violence and bloodshed.

What fascinates the jihadis ... is “pure revolt”, and this includes kicking against their parents’ tightly bound geographical and linguistic communities. The European jihadis who go to Syria and Iraq speak French or English peppered with badly pronounced Qur’anic Arabic and are surprisingly indifferent to the old colonial struggles and injustices

Several suicide bombers were found with women’s underclothes in their pockets, for the virgins they would meet in paradise

THE Barcelona terror attack has increased the divisions between the Spanish and Catalonian administrations with either side blaming the other for failings in the run-up to the killings.

In a propaganda video released by the SITE Intelligence Group Wednesday, an ISIS member describes the Barcelona perpetrators as "our brothers," while another threatens "Spanish Christians" and promises to return the country to the "land of the Caliphate."

Document Exposes Intensification of State-sanctioned Religious Repression in Troubled Tibetan County

Chinese authorities have intensified anti-religious campaigns by systematically converting Tibetan monastic institutions into Chinese government offices and the monastic population into Chinese Communist Party members in Diru (Ch: Biru) County in Nagchu (Ch: Naqu) Prefecture, Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), in Kham province.

These campaigns, implemented by the local County government and party through a new regulation, has severely curtailed the right to freedom of religion and belief of local Tibetans, particularly the monastics many of whom have been expelled and punished, as the authorities exercise absolute control over the functioning and administration over religious institutions.

TCHRD recently obtained a copy of Document no. 224 issued by the Diru County government on 19 September 2015 that calls for the intensification and deepening of the campaign to purge and reform religious institutions. The document contains a set of regulations divided into three chapters, 24 sections and 74 articles and has been circulated among relevant County, Township/town level offices, Monastery Management Committees, relevant management committees, monastic and village based permanently stationed cadres.

The regulation identifies and targets 24 activities through which religious institutions (monasteries, temples and hermitages) will be “purged and reformed” in Diru County. For instance, the Chinese authorities will keep an account of all monastic properties, and retain the sole authority to decide over their storage and repair. The authorities will monitor and control religious gatherings and ceremonies restricting local Tibetans from organizing or participating in important religious rituals.

Chinese authorities in Tibet have ordered the destruction of houses built in traditional style in three counties outside the regional capital Lhasa, with their replacement by Chinese-style dwellings scheduled for completion in five years, according to a local source.

Demolition and construction will begin in 2016 in Tagtse (in Chinese, Dazi), Lhundrub (Linzhou), and Maldro Gongkar (Mozhugongka) counties, located outside Lhasa city, a resident of the area told RFA’s Tibetan Service.

“We are being forced to accept and support the plan without any choice,” RFA’s source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Seriously?

Jonah Leher (207, pp. 141-142) proposes that the 1913 riot at the first performance of Stravinky's "Rite of Spring" was caused by the effect of unfamiliar sounds on certain neurons which, when overstimulated, precipitate a flood of dopamine that can, in turn, produce symptoms resembling those of schizophrenia. Irving Massey in The Neuronal Imagination (Preface)