The European Union Times |
- Thousands rally at anti-Islam protest in Germany
- World’s oldest water found deep underground
- ISIS Supporters Praise Attacks on French Citizens
- New species discovered in western Pacific Ocean
- Google’s self-drive cars to hit streets in 2015
|
Posted: 23 Dec 2014 12:56 PM PST
 Thousands gathered by Dresden’s iconic opera house, the Semperoper, to demand stricter immigration rules. The organizers, Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the Occident (PEGIDA), also invited participants to do some carol singing. Ruptly’s video shows PEGIDA’s founder and leader Lutz Bachmann speaking at the event, stating that “Germany is no immigrant’s land” and demanding that those who wish to live in the country do so by adhering to a “culture based on the Christian-Jewish” values and “humanism.” The Monday demo marked PEGIDA’s largest protest so far. The ranks of the group have been swelling with each passing week since its first rally in October, which gathered just a few hundred people. PEGIDA’s organizers have said that they are standing up against extremism and not against immigrants as such, but the rallies have spread concerns among communist traitors over a rising far-right movement in Germany. The group’s supporters refer to themselves as “patriots,” who are worried about the “watering down” of Germany’s Christian culture and values. Semperoper has expressed its disapproval of the movement by turning off the lights during the rally and putting out flags outside that read: “Open your eyes,” “Open doors” and “The dignity of the human being is inviolable” – which is the first line of German’s constitution. PEGIDA’s protest was met with counter-demonstrations across the country. About 4,500 leftist imbeciles marched through Dresden, carrying banners reading: “Nazi-free,” AP reported. Activists accused PEGIDA of being racist and spreading xenophobia, forgetting what the “peaceful” multicultural Americans did in Dresden in 45 with their firebombs. Similar anti-PEGIDA demonstrations took place in Munich, with at least 12,000 people coming out. In Bonn, several hundreds of counter-demonstrators faced off with rallying members of anti-immigration group BOGIDA (Bonn Against Islamism), prompting police intervention.  Ruptly’s video from Bonn showed demonstrators clashing with police, and several protesters being detained by the authorities. Berlin, Rostock, Würzburg, and Düsseldorf also saw leftist-protests in opposition to the patriotic movement. The anti-immigration movement has been gaining followers as Germany became the number one destination for asylum seekers in Europe. Moreover, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) said in a report that Germany is the second most-favored destination after the US for refugees and asylum seekers (aka invaders and future replacements of native European people). Many leftist globalist politicians in Germany, except for the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, have spoken out against the movement. Source           |
|
Posted: 23 Dec 2014 12:34 PM PST
 The researchers followed a scientific treasure map of places to investigate the ancient bodies of water on Earth. The investigation then led to the water discovery deep within the oldest rocks in the Earth’s crust below Canada, South Africa, and Scandinavia. The Canadian-led research team took samples of water from one kilometer below the surface to more than three kilometers. The research team has investigated deep mines across the world since the 1980s. “The water appears to be reacting with the rock to produce large quantities of hydrogen,” according to the research. Researchers took samples of the highly salty water welling up in 19 mines around the world to test for hydrogen content. “The huge quantities of hydrogen rich water in the Earth’s crust was a ‘sleeping giant’ that could be a source of possible energy for life,” said the lead author, Professor Barbara Sherwood Lollar, geologist at the University of Toronto. Researchers estimate there is about 11 million cubic kilometers of the water, which is more than all the world’s rivers, swamps and lakes put together. Source      |
|
Posted: 23 Dec 2014 12:12 PM PST
 A driver screamed “Allah is Great” before running down pedestrians in Dijon, France on Sunday. Eleven people were injured in five different attacks, two seriously. “He ran over as many people as he could in a Renault Clio, and many are suffering with very serious head injuries,” police said. A Twitter post, allegedly from ISIS supporters, praised the attack. The tweet displayed a photo of a man killed by police during an attack on Saturday. Translation: “Supporters #ISIS boast ‘the courage of brother Bilal al- Faransi.’ He tried to kill pedestrians in Dijon Sunday.” According to Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet, the man man was a psychiatric patient. In addition to screaming “Allahu Akbar,” or “God is Great,” the suspect also said his act was “For the Children of Palestine,” a reference to the death of more than 500 children in the occupied Gaza Strip during the summer. Despite the political references to Gaza and Allah, French prosecutor Marie-Christine Tarare said the incident “is absolutely not a terrorist act.” She said the suspect had a “long-lasting and severe psychological disorder.” The daily French Le Figaro reported Monday the suspect planned to attack soldiers and police but when he couldn’t find any attacked pedestrians instead. On Saturday a knife-wielding French national originally from Burundi, Bertrand Nzohabonayo, wounded three police officers outside a police station in Joue-les-Tours. Police shot the man dead. Nzohabonayo, a recent convert to Islam, was known to police for petty crimes. “There are grounds to probe whether he (Nzohabonayo) acted alone , whether he followed orders, or whether it was a mindless action,” said Tours prosecutor Jean-Luc Beck. In November, a video attributed to the Islamic State called for attacks on French citizens. The video was released and publicized by the SITE Intelligence Group. SITE received financial support from the U.S. government, has worked with the FBI, and has at least one senior adviser connected to the RAND Corporation on its staff. Source      |
|
Posted: 23 Dec 2014 11:57 AM PST
 The species were explored during the researchers’ expedition to the deepest trench on Earth, at 8,143 meters below the surface which is 500 meters deeper than the previous record. The expedition broke several records for the deepest living fish either caught or seen. A variety of snailfish and a number of new fish species such as white translucent fish with broad wing-like fins and an eel-like tail are among the discovered communities of animals. The team also captured the deepest rock samples ever collected. The researchers took the expedition by using five deep-sea vehicles at depths from 5000-10,600 meters. A group of researchers from the Schmidt Ocean Institute in the US state of California took this recent sea floor trip, which is a research project of Hadal Ecosystem Studies (HADES). “Many studies have rushed to the bottom of the trench, but from an ecological view that is very limiting. It’s like trying to understand a mountain ecosystem by only looking at its summit,” said co-chief scientist Dr. Jeff Drazen from the Schmidt Ocean Institute. Source      |
|
Posted: 23 Dec 2014 11:48 AM PST
 Google’s famed self-drive car is ready to go. The first fully-functioning automated vehicles will be seen on Californian roads starting 2015. “Today we’re unwrapping the best holiday gift we could’ve imagined: the first real build of our self-driving vehicle prototype,” the search engine giant said on its website on Monday. Initially, the world got to see a different car, with co-founder Sergey Brin saying at the time: “The main reason we wanted to develop this prototype vehicle is that we can do a better job than we can do with an existing vehicle.” But with the latest announcement, Google is dispelling concerns that it was the best they could come up with design-wise: “The vehicle we unveiled in May was an early mockup – it didn’t even have real headlights,”the tech giant said on its website. “Since then, we’ve been working on different prototypes-of-prototypes, each designed to test different systems of a self-driving car – for example, the typical ‘car’ parts like steering and braking, as well as the ‘self-driving’ parts like the computer and sensors,” it continued. “We’ve now put all those systems together in this fully functional vehicle – our first complete prototype for fully autonomous driving.” Now comes the fun part: test-drives and “zipping around [the] test track.” Once Google’s safety drivers are satisfied that everything is up to scratch during the Christmas period, the vehicle will hit the streets. The self-driving technology in the car was tested by Google on Lexus SUVs and Toyota Prius across hundreds of thousands of miles prior to the May announcement. However, the tech giant isn’t the only player in the game: Ford, Nissan, Toyota and the electric car maker Tesla have all had a stab. Ford made a big breakthrough in March, but still has some way to go toward a fully-automated vehicle. The first tests of Google’s self-drive technology looked like this: This might appear scary to the faint-hearted, but Google’s first 100 prototypes only have two buttons – stop and go, complete with GPS, camera and various sensors. Back in May, Chris Urmson of Google said, “they won’t have a steering wheel, accelerator pedal, or brake pedal… because they don’t need them. Our software and sensors do all the work.” No conclusive tech specs were released in the announcement on Monday. “The experience feels different. You’re just sitting there, no steering wheel, no pedals – for me it was very relaxing. In about 10 seconds after getting in, I forgot I was there. It reminded me of catching a chairlift by yourself, a bit of solitude I found really enjoyable,” Brin is also quoted as saying. Monday’s announcement is a leap toward the human dream of being driven around like we’re all in a sci-fi movie, but most importantly, opens doors to other companies’ use of the same self-drive technology. Source     |
