Tweets About Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi "Dying Like a Dog" are no Joking Matter
Alexandra Isfahani-Hammond | counterpunch.org | 2019-12-24
The media has been overflowing with wisecracks about the absurdity of Trump's praise for the Belgian Malinois, Conan, one of several dogs used to hunt Isis founder and leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi on October 26. On the one hand, Trump tweeted that the "wonderful," "beautiful" and "talented" dog did a "GREAT JOB" and posted a…
counterpunch.org/2019/12/24/tweets-about-abu-bakr-al-baghdadi-dying-like-a-dog-are-no-joking-matter/

German student says he's told to leave India after joining protests
yenisafak.com | 2019-12-24
A German exchange student said on Tuesday that Indian authorities had ordered him to leave the country after he took part in protests against Prime Minister Narendra Modi's new citizenship law.Jakob Lindenthal, a 24-year-old pursuing a master's degree in physics, said he took part in two rallies in the southern city of Chennai against the law, which critics say discriminates against India's minority Muslims.A photo circulated on Twitter shows Lindenthal holding a sign that reads: "1933-1945 We have been there," a reference to Nazi Germany.Lindenthal said he was summoned to a meeting with India's immigration autho…
yenisafak.com/en/world/german-student-says-hes-told-to-leave-india-after-joining-protests-3508149

Twitter bans animated PNGs to prevent trolls from weaponizing them and triggering seizures
rt.com | 2019-12-24
Twitter has banned animated PNG image files (APNGs) on the platform in a bid to prevent the file format being weaponized against people with epilepsy, following a series of troll attacks on the platform. | The company announced the changes, indicating that it had detected a bug which allowed users to bypass its autoplay protection settings and include multiple animated images in a single tweet, which could potentially trigger seizures in people with sensitivity to motion and flashing images. | t.co/Suogtrop1u– Twitter Accessibility (@TwitterA11y)

Feeling nervous? Blame evolution for making human brain more susceptible to anxiety, study suggests
rt.com | 2019-12-24
Depression can come from many things, such as reading Twitter too often, but a new study has revealed that feeling lousy is partly the fault of changes in the brain over the course of human evolution. | Serotonin and dopamine are critical to keeping us upbeat and positive, but a gene tasked with transporting these chemicals to our brain has evolved to carry less of these neurochemicals, a research team led by Tohoku University in Sendai, Japan, has concluded. | Vesicular monoamine transporter 1 (VMAT1) is one of the genes responsible for delivering mood-boosting neurotransmitters to our brain. By reconstructin…
rt.com/news/476735-brain-evolution-depression-anxiety/

Peru-Based Mercenaries Attacked Venezuelan Soldiers: Arreaza
telesurenglish.net | 2019-12-23
The Foreign Minister of Venezuela Jorge Arreaza stated that the group of mercenaries that attacked a military unit in the southern part of the country on Sunday morning has its base of operations in Peru. | RELATED: | Venezuela's Armed Forces Denounce Attack on Military Base | "We denounce the group of mercenaries that have sought to generate violence and today, they assaulted the military unit in Gran Sabana; they have their base of operations in Peru," Arreaza tweeted. | He said…
telesurenglish.net/news/Peru-Based-Mercenaries-Attacked-Venezuelan-Soldiers-Arreaza-20191223-0001.html

John Lennon, Celebrated in Havana
Prof Susan Babbitt | globalresearch.ca | 2019-12-23
The anniversary of John Lennon's death (December 8) was marked in Cuba. Criticism followed on social media: Cuba repressed Beatles music forcing kids under the covers. Abel Prieto and Guille Vilar, youth in Cuba at the time, say it's not …
globalresearch.ca/john-lennon-celebrated-havana/5698475

'I've got a lot of problems with you people': Rand Paul unloads on Washington in Festivus Twitter tirade
rt.com | 2019-12-23
Government waste, neocon warmongers, and the ongoing impeachment circus: Senator Rand Paul is mad about a lot of things, and channeled his inner Seinfeld to air his grievances with the world. | Republican Senator Rand Paul (Kentucky) celebrates the fictional December 23 holiday of Festivus – immortalized by 'Seinfeld' in 1997 – with an annual "airing of grievances." After releasing his annual ' Festivus Report' on government overspending last week, the deficit-hawk Senator took to Twitter on Monday to air some more p…
rt.com/usa/476693-rand-paul-festivus-grievances/

'Surveillance Valley' author Yasha Levine's Twitter frozen after post objecting to US pushing for war with Russia in Ukraine
rt.com | 2019-12-23
Yasha Levine, a journalist who exposed the US government surveillance origins of the internet and its symbiotic relationship with Big Tech, was locked out of Twitter after criticizing Washington's Ukraine policy with clear satire. | "We gotta kill Russians in Ukraine or they'll come and kill us here!" Levine tweeted on Saturday, mocking what he described as the US' policy of using Ukraine as a "forward operating base" — a policy expressed in only slightly more euphemistic terms during the impeachment hearings earlier this month. The journalist even included a link to an article he'd written excoriating th…
rt.com/usa/476687-yasha-levine-twitter-censored-ukraine/

Emergency Cleanup Underway After Fuel Spill in Galapagos Islands Sparks Concern for Unique and Fragile Ecosystem
Jessica Corbett, staff writer | commondreams.org | 2019-12-23
A ship carrying 600 gallons of diesel fuel sank in the Galapagos Islands Sunday, sparking widespread concerns about the impact on local wildlife and the environment as Ecuadorian officials took emergency action to contain the spill. | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_special_coverage/public/headline/thumbs/twitter-oil-spill.jpg …
commondreams.org/news/2019/12/23/emergency-cleanup-underway-after-fuel-spill-galapagos-islands-sparks-concern-unique?cd-origin=rss

Israeli Minister Calls for Elimination of Palestinian Authority
telesurenglish.net | 2019-12-22
Israel's Minister of Transport Bezalel Smotrich took on social media Saturday to demand his government to dismantle the Palestinian Authority (PA) government after the International Criminal Court (ICC) decided to probe into alleged Israeli war crimes in Palestine. | RELATED: | ICC May Investigate British War Crimes in Iraq, Afghanistan | Smotrich, who…
telesurenglish.net/news/Israeli-Minister-Demands-Suppression-of-Palestinian-Government–20191222-0006.html

CIA torture is 'snow secret': Edward Snowden roasts CIA's feelgood holiday tweet
rt.com | 2019-12-21
Every now and again the CIA does its best to appear relatable, and every time the agency gets put back in its place. Now, NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden hijacked a festive tweet to slam the CIA's torture practices. | "It's *snow secret* that we love winter," the clandestine agency tweeted on Saturday, marking the first day of winter in the US. | Snowden was acerbic in his response. "It's *snow secret* that you tortured Gul Rahman for weeks at a black site, then chained him naked to a concrete floor until he died in the near-winter cold," he tweeted. | It's *snow secret* you tortured Gul Rahman for weeks at a…
rt.com/usa/476580-cia-snowden-snow-secret/

Trump raises 'smocking' age to 21 & slams nonexistent 'ET' mag, creating thousands of proofreaders in one stroke
rt.com | 2019-12-20
US President Donald Trump has excoriated Christianity Today magazine for demanding his dismissal, referring to it as "ET" in his rage. Then he bragged about raising the "smocking" age, further triggering his new editors. | Trump warned his supporters that the magazine Christianity Today, which published an editorial calling for him to leave office on religious grounds earlier this week, had degenerated into a "far left magazine" in a tweet on Friday. The periodical "would rather have a Radical Left nonbeliever, who wants to take your religion & your guns, than Donald Trump as your President," he fumed. | ….h…
rt.com/usa/476515-trump-christian-mag-smocking-typos/

Whistleblower Chelsea Manning Spends Her Birthday Imprisoned
Alan Macleod | mintpressnews.com | 2019-12-18
Military whistleblower Chelsea Manning spent her 32nd birthday behind bars yesterday for continuing to refuse to testify against Wikileaks co-founder Julian Assange. She has been in prison since May after a U.S. District Judge ordered her incarceration for not recognizing the legitimacy of the grand jury. She tweeted that she was grateful for t…
mintpressnews.com/whistleblower-chelsea-manning-spends-her-birthday-imprisoned/263594/

Tories spent over £950,000 on Facebook adverts in late election blitz
The Canary | thecanary.co | 2019-12-18
The Conservative Party spent more than any other party on Facebook and Instagram adverts in the run-up to last week's General Election, analysis by the PA news agency has found.It largely came in a spending blitz in the final two weeks of the campaign.Across their two main pages — named Conservatives and Boris Johnson — the party spent a total of £959,329 in the four weeks up to the vote.In comparison, Labour spent £552,035 on its Labour Party and Jeremy Corbyn pages between 14 November and 12 December, the fourth most of the major UK parties.The Liberal Democrats were the second biggest spe…
thecanary.co/uk/news/2019/12/18/tories-spent-over-950000-on-facebook-adverts-in-late-election-blitz/

Viral Chilean feminist anthem reveals powerful international sentiment against sexual violence
Candice Yanez | liberationnews.org | 2019-12-16
The protest song was first performed for the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women on November 20 in Valparaíso, Chile.
liberationnews.org/viral-chilean-feminist-anthem-reveals-powerful-international-sentiment-against-sexual-violence/

The War on Truth: How Israel's Social Media Trolls Conquered Facebook
Ramzy Baroud | zcomm.org | 2019-12-02
Israel may have found a way to circumvent the influence of Facebook on the discussions pertaining to Palestinian rights and the Israeli occupation…
zcomm.org/zmagazine/the-war-on-truth-how-israels-social-media-trolls-conquered-facebook/