We Are Awake

On November 10, Muslims laid their prayer mats on a road in the northern Parisian suburb of Clichy-la-Garenne. They were met with a banner held aloft by local politicians, led by right-wing Mayor Remi Muzeau, which read: “Stop illegal prayers in the streets.” For eight months, hundreds of Muslims have gathered in front of the town hall every Friday to worship. Now, French lawmakers have pledged to put an end to the public worship sessions, not only in the suburb, but elsewhere in the country. "They will not have prayers on the street, we will prevent street praying," Interior Minister Gerard Collomb told Questions Politics on Sunday. He did not refer to any specific law, although former Interior Minister Claude Guéant outlawed street prayers in Paris in 2011. The worshippers are aggrieved that a popular mosque in the suburb has been converted into a library since March, despite thousands congregating at the house of worship. They accuse authorities of not provi

S ince mid-October, the astronomy community has been buzzing about what might be our Solar System’s first confirmed interstellar visitor. An automated telescope spotted an object that appeared as if it had been dropped on the Solar System from above, an angle that suggests it arrived from elsewhere. Now the astronomers have confirmed that the object is from outside our Solar System — the first interstellar asteroid that’s ever been observed. And it doesn’t look like any object we’ve ever seen in our cosmic neighbourhood before. Follow-up observations, detailed today in Nature, have found that the asteroid is dark and reddish, similar to the objects in the outer Solar System. It doesn’t have any gas or dust surrounding it like comets do, and it’s stretched long and skinny, looking a bit like an oddly shaped cigar.  It’s thought to be about a quarter-mile long, and about 10 times longer than it is wide. That makes it unlike any other asteroids seen in our Solar System, none of

QUEENSLANDERS have been warned of a sophisticated Central African phone scam which could cost them dearly. Queensland Police Senior Sergeant Steve Smith said people had started receiving calls two nights ago from a number based in Cameroon. The  Sunshine Coast Daily  reports that the ‘call-back scam’ involved an extremely short call at times of great inconvenience, giving little or no opportunity to answer the phone. When the receiver of the missed call dials back, they start to be stung with international premium call rates as the scammers have set up a toll number. Often originating in the countries with the highest toll rates, the fees are split between the scammers and the telephone company. The scam has drained prepaid credit users, while postpaid mobile phone owners have seen their next phone bills skyrocket after being stung by one of the scammers. The call-back scam circulated New Zealand in April this year, and was dubbed the ‘Wangiri scam’, meaning ‘one ring

A video showing a US military predator drone tracking down a UFO in Afghanistan has gone viral. The video shows that the unidentified object fires a powerful energy beam to destroy the drone. Conspiracy theorists claim that the video is leaked government footage. The viral video, which has been viewed more than 194,742 times, shows the predator drone over a mountain range chasing a UFO in the distance in the desert-like landscape. The mysterious object appears from the right side before disappearing around a corner. When the drone follows it, a quick beam of light appears to attack the drone in an attempt to destroy it. The video was uploaded on YouTube on October 22 by the username UFO Today. In the description, the YouTuber claims that he got the video from an anonymous source. "This video was sent to me by an anonymous source, claiming to work for the government. He/she said that this video was just the tip of the iceberg. There seems to be an increase of UFO'