BansheeOne

One vote, one man! https://www.dw.com/en/nicaragua-another-presidential-contender-arrested-ahead-of-election/a-58628994

At any rate there was less than a year between the Iranian Revolution at the start and Soviet Intervention in Afghanistan at the end of 1979, and the mullahs had to consolidate their power at home for a couple years before they could think of supporting attacks abroad. Essentially until 1983, in Lebanon, against a backdrop of real and perceived attacks against the Shi'a by Iraq, Israel and the West. Before that, Islamism of either the Sunnite or Shi'ite kind wasn't much of a factor in international (as opposed to domestic) terrorism at all.

As noted back during the Rotherham scandal, ingrained societal prejudice that vulnerable minors are trash anyway tends to make authorities turn a blind eye to systematic abuse even before the perpetrators get around to claim special protection because of their faith etc.

https://m.dw.com/en/trial-opens-in-rotten-vatican-finance-scandal/a-58656286

https://m.dw.com/en/iran-drought-water-shortages-spark-protests/a-58651779 https://m.dw.com/en/cuba-says-its-paris-embassy-attacked-blames-us/a-58652555

https://m.dw.com/en/hong-kong-first-guilty-verdict-under-national-security-law/a-58655014

Recent events made me note that we cannot allow a gap between the Elections and Protest threads. 😁 https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/7/27/haiti-arrests-top-security-chief-in-slain-president-investigation https://m.dw.com/en/tunisia-president-dismisses-pm-mechichi-freezes-parliament/a-58637504

Well for about ten days it did just that; it looked to me like if voters credited either the CDU for competence in disaster relief or the Greens in adressing climate change, then not with the respective current candidates. It didn't help the Greens that after wisely holding off on exploiting the disaster too much while bodies were still being pulled from the rubble, the next major news Annalena Baerbock made was by pre-emptively apologizing for using the "N-word" (negro, not nigger as far as can be ascertained from the convoluted descriptions by media avoiding the word itself) in an interview recorded for the "Tachles Arena" of the Central Council of the Jews in Germany. Apparently she was recounting, with all due outrage, an incident where a school student refused an assignment to write a story based upon a worksheet containing said word, and in doing so said the unspeakable herself. After noting that, she agreed with the Council that it will be bleeped out when the interview is aired next month. Her immediate Twitter statement may have been informed by the current proceedings to throw Tübingen mayor Boris Palmer out of the party over using the same term in an offensive Facebook post about a black soccer player, as noted earlier; though she rather correctly stated it wasn't quite the same due to entirely different context. Of course while her transparency is admirable, it just drew attention to the fact that the Greens by and large subscribe to a culture in which you can't even say offensive words to explain that and how they are offensive, resulting in a kindergarten language where eventually nobody knows what you're talking about anymore. Frankly, few people would have noted the interview when it aired, and even fewer would have cared about the point, because most can understand context. Except of course the supersensitive who unfortunately form a core clientele of the Greens. So in their quest to broaden their base towards plurality among voters, this is another self-inflicted wound - this time not just by the candidate, but the party overall.

Hmph, and now I find the sheet lists pleas, but not the if and what of convictions; my search hits were in the short narratives including prior convictions. That's not much use for our purpose then. It's not that there haven't been any convictions, because much googling yields half a dozen,* but for some reason I can't fathom those obviously interesting details aren't listed by that site. * https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndtx/pr/man-who-brandished-assault-rifle-black-lives-matter-protest-sentenced-46-months https://www.foxnews.com/us/portland-marquise-love-protest-beating https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/article252883733.html https://www.kake.com/story/43671634/wichita-blm-protest-organizer-convicted-of-two-of-five-charges-will-appeal https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2021/jan/22/3-black-rights-protesters-convicted-in-conway/

Shit, I note that I somehow gave a circular link to this thread. Now fixed. This is the correct site: https://theprosecutionproject.org/2020/12/22/tracking-federal-cases-related-to-summer-protests-riots-uprisings/ And for the Capitol riots: https://theprosecutionproject.org/january-6th-capital-protests/

I finally found a source tracking legal cases from both the BLM protests and Capitol assault (though they note that they don't discriminate for ideology, so at this point the list may include cases of counter-demonstrators to the respective events). I'm on my phone which makes it hard to read the spreadsheets, but a search of the BLM list indicates that there have so far been six convictions (mostly for unlawfull possession of firearms), 55 guilty plea bargains and 50 findings of not guilty. I must take a closer look when I get back to my PC.

Fatality count currently at 180 with about 150 still reported missing. So many volunteers are travelling to the affected area that police asked them to stop because the traffic is blocking roads for professional helpers. Not everyone going there seems to have the best intentions either; there are the usual disaster tourists who just want to watch, and reportedly some from the diffuse Querdenker scene of lockdown protesters, anti-vaxxers, sovereign citizen-type Reichsbürger, neo-Nazis and general conspiracy and anti-government types who are spreading disinformation that the government isn't doing enough, forcing flood victims to be vaccinated or not helping the unvaccinated, and presenting themselves as the real helpers. There's at least one of the "peace vehicles" made up to look like a police van which have been seen at Querdenker protests going around the area that has allegedly made loudspeaker announcements that relief organizations are being pulled out, and the vice president of the THW claimed this morning that some of their volunteers have been attacked by those types, along with genuinely frustrated victims. Police has been unable to confirm that so far. https://m.dw.com/en/germany-flood-helpers-pelted-with-garbage/a-58623123

Well there was some talk of such technology when Johnson aired his grand plans for an Irish Sea bridge or tunnel. The point being that such a link would funnel exchange into one route so you'd catch most of it; if it works it's readily applied to single high-volume links like railroads. You'd still have to have some controls for smuggling by people using different routes, though one might accept it as negligible if economics direct the vast majority of cross-sea transport into a quasi-land link, and ferry lines and such wither away. Much more difficult on a land border, which you'd practically have to fence with sensors. Note that despite the technology, there are still queues at Estonian-Russian road checkpoints which traffic is mandated to use, as Wikipedia states.

Germany and US sorta settle Nord Stream 2 row, for now. Nobody on either side or in Europe seems really happy about it, except possibly Russia and its sympathizers. https://www.politico.eu/article/us-and-germany-have-nord-stream-2-pipeline-deal-but-lack-authority-to-implement-it/