Vienna Terrorist Attack

Live Updates: 4 Dead; Suspect Was ISIS ‘Sympathizer’

A gunman was killed, and the authorities say that there is no indication of any other attackers having been involved in the shooting rampage in central Vienna.

A man who opened fire in central Vienna on Monday night while armed with an automatic rifle, a pistol and a machete and wearing a fake explosive device was a 20-year-old Austrian citizen who had sought to travel to Syria to join the Islamic State, Interior Minister Karl Nehammer said in a news briefing on Tuesday.

The rampage left four dead and 22 others wounded in the heart of the Austrian capital before the gunman was killed by the police nine minutes after the assault began, Mr. Nehammer said, adding that the evidence gathered so far showed no indication that others were involved.

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Despite being injured, heroic Turk saves policeman in Vienna terror attack

At least 3 people died, 15 more wounded in terror attack in Austria’s capital on Monday evening




A heroic Turk hurled himself into a hail of bullets in Vienna Monday night, risking his life to save both an injured women and a police officer from terrorist attack.

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Palestinian saves Austrian policeman in Vienna attack

Osama Joda, 23, risks his live to help wounded police officer during Monday’s terrorist attack

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I hope every other ontd_political member living in Austria is safe as well.

hamster

Yet more proof that my province is a racist cesspool...

OP: As if the world needed more proof that my province (Quebec) is a racist cesspool...

Joyce Echaquan death: Canada PM Trudeau decries 'worst form of racism'

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OP: Please take note of the trigger warnings. Quebec is a racist cesspool who recently elected their own brand of Donald Trump/fascists.

Survey Finds Lack of Holocaust Knowledge Among American Young Adults

Survey Finds Lack of Holocaust Knowledge Among American Young Adults




A “shocking” number of American young adults lack a basic understanding of the Holocaust, according to a new survey.

According to the first-ever, state-by-state survey of American Millennials and Gen Z (ages 18 to 39), 63% do not know that 6 million Jews were exterminated by Nazis, and 36% thought the number was “two million or fewer.”

Nearly a quarter of those surveyed (23%) said they believed the Holocaust was a myth, had been exaggerated or weren’t sure.

Commissioned by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, also known as the Claims Conference, the study found “particularly disquieting” that nearly 20% of young people in the state of New York thought Jews were responsible for the Holocaust. This view was held by 11% nationally.

"The results are both shocking and saddening and they underscore why we must act now while Holocaust survivors are still with us to voice their stories," said Claims Conference President Gideon Taylor in a statement.

"We need to understand why we aren't doing better in educating a younger generation about the Holocaust and the lessons of the past. This needs to serve as a wake-up call to us all, and as a road map of where government officials need to act."

The survey also found that young Americans couldn’t name one of the more than 40,000 concentration camps or ghettos established during World War II. Fifty-six percent could not identify Auschwitz-Birkenau, the most infamous concentration camp.



Nearly half of those surveyed said they’d seen Holocaust denial or distortion posts on social media or elsewhere online.

The survey found that 64% think Holocaust education should be compulsory.

Data was collected among adults 18 to 39 years old from 1,000 interviews nationwide and 200 interviews in each state.


Source



Here you can find more interesting details about the survey (Pew Research Center - pewforum.org)





Unrelated news:

Notorious Antigay Russian Ultranationalist Found Dead In Jail Cell

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Businessman Acquitted in Murder of Jan Kuciak, Journalist in Slovakia

Businessman Acquitted in Murder of Jan Kuciak, Journalist in Slovakia

Marian Kocner was acquitted of ordering the 2018 killing of an investigative journalist that set off anticorruption protests.


PEZINOK, Slovakia — After eight months of a closely watched trial, Marian Kocner — once one of Slovakia’s most powerful and well-connected businessmen — was acquitted on Thursday of ordering the murder of an investigative journalist who had threatened to expose a web of corruption involving the nation’s political and corporate elites and organized crime.

The verdict, handed down by a special criminal court that handles the country’s most serious cases, can be appealed in Slovakia’s Supreme Court. It is likely to draw scrutiny, because the murder ignited outrage across Slovakia and led to calls for reform.

The journalist, Jan Kuciak, 27, was shot and killed with his fiancée, Martina Kusnirova, in February 2018 in his home in Velka Maca, a village outside Slovakia’s capital, Bratislava.

Their bodies were discovered days after the murder, and as evidence mounted that Mr. Kuciak was the target of an assassination, the killings set off the largest nationwide protests since the 1989 Velvet Revolution. The protests brought hundreds of thousands of people to the streets calling for a thorough investigation and condemning the systemic corruption that has long plagued the small Central European nation.

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Florida mosquitoes: 750 million genetically modified insects to be released

Local officials in Florida have approved the release of 750 million mosquitoes that have been genetically modified to reduce local populations.

The aim is to reduce the number of mosquitoes that carry diseases like dengue or the Zika virus.

The green-lighting of a pilot project after years of debate drew a swift outcry from environmental groups, who warned of unintended consequences.

One group condemned the plan as a public "Jurassic Park experiment".

Activists warn of possible damage to ecosystems, and the potential creation of hybrid, insecticide-resistant mosquitoes.

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Would it be wrong to eradicate mosquitoes?



The mosquito is the most dangerous animal in the world, carrying diseases that kill one million people a year. Now the Zika virus, which is carried by mosquitoes, has been linked with thousands of babies born with brain defects in South America. Should the insects be wiped out?

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Poland

Council of Europe 'alarmed' at Poland's plans to leave domestic violence treaty



The Council of Europe has said it is alarmed that Poland’s rightwing government is moving to withdraw from a landmark international treaty aimed at preventing violence against women.

Poland’s justice minister, Zbigniew Ziobro, said on Saturday that he would begin preparing the formal process to withdraw from the Istanbul convention on Monday. The treaty is the world’s first binding instrument to prevent and tackle violence against women, from marital rape to female genital mutilation.

A previous centrist Polish government signed the treaty in 2012 and it was ratified in 2015, when Ziobro called it “an invention, a feminist creation aimed at justifying gay ideology”.

The treaty was spearheaded by the Council of Europe, the continent’s oldest human rights organisation, and its secretary general, Marija Pejčinović Burić, condemned the rightwing Law and Justice party (PiS) government’s plan to withdraw.

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European Union funding withheld from six Polish towns boasting abhorrently homophobic ‘LGBT-free zones’




Six towns in Poland that adopted ‘LGBT-free’ zones are facing financial consequences for their homophobic policies after the EU rejected their application for funding.

The towns, which all signed pledges opposing acts of tolerance towards the LGBT+ community, had applied to the EU’s town twinning programme.

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Kyrgyzstan's rights activist Azimzhan Askarov dies at 69

MOSCOW (AP) — Azimzhan Askarov, a human rights defender in Kyrgyzstan who was serving a life term on charges of involvement in ethnic violence that were widely criticized as trumped-up, has died in a prison clinic. He was 69.

The U. N. Human Rights Committee and leading international human rights organizations have repeatedly urged the Central Asian nation's authorities to release Askarov, noting his deteriorating health.

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Sudan Allows Alcohol Consumption After 30 Years of Islamic Law

Sudan abolished a law against apostasy that carried the death penalty  and loosened prohibitions on drinking alcohol, removing some of the  most notorious restrictions of ousted dictator Omar al-Bashir’s Islamist  rule.

Authorities have also officially outlawed female genital  mutilation, a step previously announced, Justice Minister Nasur Aldin  Abdul Bari said Saturday in an interview on state TV. It was the first  widely publicized explanation of the amendments made last week.

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What’s the Deal With Parler and its Rising Popularity?

Examining the “free speech”–centric, far right–friendly alternative to Twitter.

The  basic idea of Parler is an awful lot like Twitter. But instead of  tweets, users post “Parleys”. Instead of retweets, there are “echoes.”  And upon registering, the suggested accounts to follow include new  outlets such as Breitbart, the Epoch Times, and the Daily Caller, as well as the political accounts for Rand Paul, Mark Levin, and Team Trump.

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Hagia Sophia: World Council of Churches appeals to Turkey on mosque decision

The World Council of Churches has called on Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to reverse his decision to turn the celebrated Hagia Sophia museum back into a mosque.

In a letter to Mr Erdogan, the Council, which counts 350 churches as members, said the move would sow division.

The Unesco World Heritage site in Istanbul has been a museum since 1934.

The president announced his decision on Friday following a court ruling which annulled its museum status.

The Hagia Sophia was built 1,500 years ago as an Orthodox Christian cathedral, but was converted into a mosque after the Ottoman conquest in 1453.

It was converted to a museum on the orders of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founding father of modern, secular Turkey.

Since then religious services have been banned at the site, but devout Muslims have long campaigned for worship to be allowed.

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