Month: February 2018

Authored by Denis MacEoin via The Gatestone Institute,

For many complex reasons, Europe is in an advanced state of decline. In recent years, several important studies of this condition have appeared, advancing a variety of reasons for it: Douglas Murray’s The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam, James Kirchik’s The End of Europe: Dictators, Demagogues, and the Coming Dark Age, as well as Christopher Caldwell’s ground-breaking 2010 study, Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam and the West. Soeren Kern at Gatestone Institute has also been detailing the steady impact of immigration from Muslim regions on countries such as Germany, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.

It is clear that something serious is happening on the continent in which I live.

The threat is not restricted to Europe, but has a global dimension. Michael J. Abramowitz, President of Freedom House, writes in his introduction to the organization’s 2018 report:

A quarter-century ago, at the end of the Cold War, it appeared that totalitarianism had at last been vanquished and liberal democracy had won the great ideological battle of the 20th century.

Today, it is democracy that finds itself battered and weakened. For the 12th consecutive year, according to Freedom in the World, countries that suffered democratic setbacks outnumbered those that registered gains. States that a decade ago seemed like promising success stories—Turkey and Hungary, for example—are sliding into authoritarian rule.

For Douglas Murray, immigration and the problems it is throwing up are the key topic. He is uncompromising in his negative response to the social change that has been brought about by the excessive and barely controlled immigration of people who, for the most part, do not share the most basic values of the countries in which they now live.

Certainly, Europe’s current state of decline owes much to the widely recognized fact that Muslims are the first newcomers to Europe who, over several generations, are resistant to integrating into the societies of which they now form a part. This rejection of Europe’s humanitarian, Judeo-Christian values applies, not just to the successive waves of refugees and economic migrants who have washed up on the shores of Greece, Italy and Spain since the start of the Syrian civil war, but to generations of Pakistanis and Bangladeshis in the UK, North Africans in France, and Turkish “guest workers” in Germany.

A former Muslim extremist, Ed Husain, writes in his book, The Islamist: Why I Joined Radical Islam in Britain, what I Saw Inside and why I Left:

The result of 25 years of multiculturalism has not been multicultural communities. It has been mono-cultural communities…. Islamic communities are segregated. Many Muslims want to live apart from mainstream British society; official government policy has helped them do so. I grew up without any white friends. My school was almost entirely Muslim. I had almost no direct experience of ‘British life’ or ‘British institutions’. So it was easy for the extremists to say to me: ‘You see? You’re not part of British society. You never will be. You can only be part of an Islamic society.’ The first part of what they said was true. I wasn’t part of British society: nothing in my life overlapped with it.

According to Ed Husain (right), a former Muslim extremist, “The result of 25 years of multiculturalism has not been multicultural communities. It has been mono-cultural communities… Islamic communities are segregated.” (Image source: CNN video screenshot)

In July 2015, arguing for an anti-extremism bill in parliament, Britain’s prime minister at the time, David Cameron, admitted:

“For all our successes as a multi-racial, multi-faith democracy, we have to confront a tragic truth that there are people born and raised in this country who don’t really identify with Britain – and who feel little or no attachment to other people here. Indeed, there is a danger in some of our communities that you can go your whole life and have little to do with people from other faiths and backgrounds.”

Countless polls and investigations reveal that refusal to integrate is no figment of the supposedly “Islamophobic” political “right”. A 2006 poll carried out by ICM Research on behalf of the Sunday Telegraph, for example, presented worrying findings: 40% of British Muslims polled said they backed introducing shari’a law in parts of Britain, and only 41% opposed it, leaving another 20% unclear. Sadiq Khan, the Labour MP involved with the official task force set up after the July 2005 attacks, said the findings were “alarming”. Since then, similar findings have shown that the younger generation of Muslims is more conservative, even radical, than their parents or grandparents:

Commenting on a major 2016 ICM poll of Muslim opinion, Trevor Phillips, who had been Britain’s foremost advocate of multiculturalism, said that, with respect to the Muslim community, he had made a 180° turn:

“for a long time, I too thought that Europe’s Muslims would become like previous waves of migrants, gradually abandoning their ancestral ways, wearing their religious and cultural baggage lightly, and gradually blending into Britain’s diverse identity landscape. I should have known better.”

Another major 2016 review on social equality carried out on behalf of the British government by Dame Louise Casey, found Muslims the least well integrated community. In summarizing her work for the National Secular Society, Benjamin Jones wrote:

“Despite decades of failures, it is worth noting that problems integrating Muslim minorities are hardly rare around the world, and this is not a problem unique to the United Kingdom. That brings us to the final unsayable thing – well known to most British people but unmentionable to officials and politicians: Islam is a special case.”

Polls carried out in other countries across Europe showed similar or worse results.

Those are only one half of a more complicated and disturbing picture. While Muslims find it hard to abandon the prejudices, doctrines, and outright hatreds (for Jews, for example) that they have imported from their home countries — or developed as young men and women while living in European states where they were born and raised — vast numbers of non-Muslims, including politicians, church leaders, civil servants, policemen and women, and many well-meaning people bend over backwards to accommodate them and the demands they make on their host societies.

It would take a book to summarize all the episodes in which Western officialdom, notably in Europe, has abandoned its own historical values in order to protect Islam and radical Muslims from criticism and rebuke. We are not speaking of the proper interventions of the police, courts, and social agencies to safeguard ordinary Muslims from physical attacks, vituperative insults, assaults on mosques, or basic denials of the rights they are entitled to enjoy as citizens of Western countries – much as we expect them to protect Jews, ethnic minorities, or vulnerable women from similar expressions of physical and verbal bigotry. Providing such support for the victims of prejudice should be applauded as an essential expression of post-Enlightenment liberal democratic values. Legislating and acting against outright discrimination is, perhaps, best exemplified in the way post-World War II German governments have criminalized anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial.

Ironically, what anti-Semitism there is today in Germany comes increasingly from Muslims.

According to Manfred Gerstenfeld:

• Jens Spahn, a board member of Chancellor Merkel’s Christian Democrat Union (CDU), and a possible successor to Merkel, remarked that the immigration from Muslim countries is the reason for the recent demonstrations [about immigrants] in Germany.
• Stephan Harbarth, deputy chairman of the CDU/ CSU faction in the Bundestag — the German parliament — said, “We have to strongly confront the antisemitism of migrants with an Arab background and those from African countries.”
• The CDU interior minister of the federal state of Hessen, Peter Beuth, remarked, “We have to avoid an immigration of antisemitism.” He said this after a study on behalf of the state’s security service concluded that antisemitism among Muslims “both quantitatively and qualitatively has at least as high relevance as the traditional antisemitism of the extreme right.”

Despite this moral response, European countries, including Germany, have shown genuine weakness when face-to-face with radical Islamic ideology, hate preachers, and basic Muslim values regarding women, non-Muslims, LGBT people, and obedience to Western laws.

Before looking at some of the reasons, motivations, and outcomes of this deeply pervasive weakness, here are a handful of examples of pusillanimity from the UK alone.

Last October, it was reported that Queen’s Counsel Max Hill, who acts as the British government’s independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, argued that British fighters for Islamic State, who had returned or planned to return to the UK, should not be prosecuted but reintegrated into society on the grounds that they had acted “naively”. This lenience extended to hate preachers who had given sermons and lectures exhorting Muslims to take direct action that has in the past led to actual terrorist attacks.

Before that, Prime Minister David Cameron and then Home Secretary Theresa May had “proposed measures including banning orders, extremism disruption orders and closure orders, which would allow premises used by extremists to be shut, and make it easier to restrict the activities of individuals and organisations.”

In 2015, May had proposed a counter-extremism strategy which said laws would be introduced to “ban extremist organisations that promote hatred and draw people into extremism” and “restrict the harmful activities of the most dangerous extremist individuals”. Mrs May also vowed to use the law to “restrict access to premises which are repeatedly used to support extremism”. Yet Max Hill QC, the man in charge of British terrorist legislation wants none of that. And May’s counter-terrorism measures, proposed again since she became Prime Minister, remain unlegislated.

The same month (October 2017) that Hill undertook the rehabilitation of jihadists and hate preachers, it was reported that the British Home Office (formerly run by Theresa May, now by Amber Rudd MP) was “looking at a new strategy to reintegrate extremists that could even see them propelled to the top of council house waiting lists if needed”.

Extremists who had nowhere suitable to live could be put in social housing by the local council and could have their rent paid if necessary, according to reports.

They could also be given priority on waiting lists and helped into education and training or found a job with public bodies or charities.

This proposal would include returnees from the Islamic State in Syria, and overall would include some 20,000 individuals known to the security services. Around 850 British subjects have gone to Syria to fight or support fighters, and 350 of them have come back home, with only a tiny handful so far prosecuted.

This approach, giving social services, is based on the belief — oft-refuted — that Muslim extremists (both Muslims-by-birth and converts) have suffered from deprivation. It also greatly rests on the naïve assumption that rewarding them with benefits — for which genuinely deprived citizens generally need to wait in line — will turn them into grateful patriots, prepared to stand for the national anthem and hold hands with Christians and Jews.

We now therefore use double standards: one for Muslims and one for the rest of our population. On January 16, 2018, in England, Daniel Grundy, was jailed for six months on a charge of bigamy. However, Muslim men in polygamous marriages are rewarded by the state:

Husbands living in a “harem” with multiple wives have been cleared to claim state benefits for all their different partners.

A Muslim man with four spouses – which is permitted under Islamic law – could receive £10,000 a year in income support alone.

He could also be entitled to more generous housing and council tax benefit, to reflect the fact his household needs a bigger property.

Ministers have decided that, even though bigamy is a crime in Britain, polygamous marriages can be recognised formally by the state – provided they took place overseas, in countries where they are legal.

Actually, British Muslim men do not even have to go abroad to find wives. At least one Muslim dating site run from the UK offers contact with Muslim women who are eager to enter into polygamous marriages. It has not been closed down. The British government has shown itself incapable of enforcing its own laws when it comes to its Muslim citizens or new immigrants.

In a similar vein are official attitudes to a common Muslim practice of female genital mutilation, which has been illegal in the UK since 1985. Politico reported last year:

“Medical staff working in England’s National Health Service recorded close to 5,500 cases of female genital mutilation (FGM) in 2016, but no one has been successfully prosecuted since the practice was banned over 30 years ago.”

Meanwhile, the practice is rising. The police and the Crown Prosecution Service are too frightened of seeming racist or “Islamophobic” to apply the law.

Max Hill’s notion that departing fighters have been naïve is itself a staggering misconception on the part of a man educated at Newcastle’s prestigious Royal Grammar School and Oxford University. No one heading for Syria will have been blithely unaware of the multitude of videos broadcast by the mainstream media and all the social media, showing the beheading of hostages, the executions of homosexuals, the lashing of women, the heads spiked on fences, the use of children to shoot victims or cut their throats, and all the other excesses committed by the terrorist group.

Rather than stand up to our enemies, both external and internal, are we now so afraid of being called “Islamophobes” that we will sacrifice even our own cultural, political, and religious strengths and aspirations? The next part of this article will examine just how major this betrayal has been and how much greater it will become.

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Thirty-six individuals were indicted in connection with a global cybercrime ring “engaged in the large-scale acquisition, sale, and dissemination of stolen identities, compromised debit and credit cards, personally identifiable information, financial and banking information, computer malware, and other contraband,” according to the Department of Justice. 

Known as the “Infraud Organization” which operated under the motto “in Fraud We trust,” the internet-based criminal enterprise used an online forum with nearly 11,000 members who targeted over 4.3 million credit cards, debit cards and bank accounts worldwide. 

“We have victims in all 50 states and throughout the world,” said Deputy Assistant Attorney General David Rybicki. “It’s really a standout in terms of the amount of damage that it caused.” 

The marketplace was a “the one-stop shop for cyber criminals worldwide,” according to Rybicki. 

Authorities arrested 13 defendants from the United States and six countries; Australia, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Kosovo and Serbia – all of whom are awaiting extradition to the United States.

Other indicted members hail from Ukraine, Pakistan, Egypt, Bangladesh, Russia, Moldova, Ivory Coast, Canada and Macedonia. 

“Today’s indictment and arrests mark one of the largest cyberfraud enterprise prosecutions ever undertaken by the Department of Justice,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Cronan.  “As alleged in the indictment, Infraud operated like a business to facilitate cyberfraud on a global scale.  Its members allegedly caused more than $530 million in actual losses to consumers, businesses, and financial institutions alike—and it is alleged that the losses they intended to cause amounted to more than $2.2 billion. –DOJ

“According to the indictment, the Infraud Organization was created in October 2010 by Svyatoslav Bondarenko aka “Obnon,” aka “Rector,” aka “Helkern,” 34, of Ukraine, to promote and grow interest in the Infraud Organization as the premier destination for carding—purchasing retail items with counterfeit or stolen credit card information—on the Internet,” reads a DOJ press release.

The investigation into the cybercrime ring is ongoing, according to officials, who would not reveal whether the data sold on the forum has been linked to high profile breaches such as the equifax hack reported last year. 

“Today marks a significant step in the battle against transnational cyber crime,” Rybicki said.

Infraud members had specific roles within the organization’s hierarchy:

“Administrators” managed day-to-day operation of and strategic planning for the organization, approved and monitored membership, and meted out punishments and rewards to members.  “Super Moderators” oversaw and administered specific subject-matter areas within their expertise.  “Moderators” moderated one or two specific sub-forums within their areas of subject-matter expertise.  “Vendors” sold illicit products and services to Infraud members.  Finally, “VIP Members” and “Members” used the Infraud forum to gather information and to facilitate their criminal activities.  As of March 2017, there were 10,901 registered members of the Infraud Organization. 

The defendants indicted for their alleged roles in the Infraud Organization’s transnational racketeering conspiracy include:

• Svyatoslav Bondarkeno of Ukraine;
• Amjad Ali aka “Amjad Ali Chaudary,” aka “RedruMZ,” aka “Amjad Chaudary,” 35, of Pakistan;
• Roland Patrick N’Djimbi Tchikaya aka “Darker,” aka “dark3r.cvv,” 37, of France;
• Miroslav Kovacevic aka “Goldjunge,” 32, of Serbia;
• Frederick Thomas aka “Mosto,” aka “1stunna,” aka “Bestssn,” 37, of Alabama;
• Osama Abdelhamed aka “MrShrnofr,” aka “DrOsama,” aka “DrOsama1,” 27, of Egypt;
• Besart Hoxha aka “Pizza,” 25, of Kosovo;
• Raihan Ahmed aka “Chan,” aka “Cyber Hacker,” aka “Mae Tony,” aka “Tony,” 26, of Bangladesh;
• Andrey Sergeevich Novak aka “Unicc,” aka “Faaxxx,” aka “Faxtrod” of the Russian Federation;
• Valerian Chiochiu aka “Onassis,” aka “Flagler,” aka “Socrate,” aka “Eclessiastes,” 28, of Moldova;
• John Doe #8 aka “Aimless88;”
• Gennaro Fioretti aka “DannyLogort,” aka “Genny Fioretti,” 56, of Italy;
• Edgar Rojas aka “Edgar Andres Viloria Rojas,” aka “Guapo,” aka “Guapo1988,” aka “Onlyshop,” 27, of Australia;
• John Telusma aka “John Westley Telusma,” aka “Peterelliot,” aka “Pete,” aka “Pette,” 33, of Brooklyn, New York;
• Rami Fawaz aka “Rami Imad Fawaz,” aka “Validshop,” aka “Th3d,” aka “Zatcher,” aka “Darkeyes,” 26, of Ivory Coast;
• Muhammad Shiraz aka “Moviestar,” aka “Leslie” of Pakistan;
• Jose Gamboa aka “Jose Gamboa-Soto,” aka “Rafael Garcia,” aka “Rafael101,” aka “Memberplex2006” aka “Knowledge,” 29, of Los Angeles, California;
• Alexey Klimenko aka “Grandhost,” 34, of Ukraine;
• Edward Lavoile aka “Eddie Lavoie,” aka “Skizo,” aka “Eddy Lavoile,” 29, of Canada;
• Anthony Nnamdi Okeakpu aka “Aslike1,” aka “Aslike,” aka “Moneymafia,” aka “Shilonng,” 29, of the United Kingdom;
• Pius Sushil Wilson aka “FDIC,” aka “TheRealGuru,” aka “TheRealGuruNYC,” aka “RealGuru,” aka “Po1son,” aka “1nfection,” aka “1nfected,” 31, of Flushing, New York;
• Muhammad Khan aka “CoolJ2,” aka “CoolJ,” aka “Secureroot,” aka “Secureroot1,” aka “Secureroot2,” aka “Mohammed Khan,” 41, of Pakistan;
• John Doe #7 aka “Muad’Dib;”
• John Doe #1 aka “Carlitos,” aka “TonyMontana;”
• David Jonathan Vargas aka “Cashmoneyinc,” aka “Avb,” aka “Poony,” aka “Renegade11,” aka “DvdSVrgs,” 33, of San Diego, California;
• John Doe #2;
• Marko Leopard aka “Leopardmk,” 28, of Macedonia;
• John Doe #4 aka “Best4Best,” aka “Wazo,” aka “Modmod,” aka “Alone1,” aka“Shadow,” aka “Banderas,” aka “Banadoura;”
• Liridon Musliu aka “Ccstore,” aka “Bowl,” aka “Hulk,” 26, of Kosovo;
• John Doe #5 aka “Deputat,” aka “Zo0mer;”
• Mena Mouries Abd El-Malak aka “Mina Morris,” aka “Source,” aka “Mena2341,” aka “MenaSex,” 34, of Egypt; and
• John Doe #6 aka “Goldenshop,”aka “Malov.”

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Retired Marine general and U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis is no stranger to strong talk (and strong actions) but, as The Daily Caller’s Justin Caruso reports, ‘Mad-dog’ put America’s enemies on notice while speaking before the House Armed Services Committee this week…

“If you threaten us, it will be your longest and worst day.”

“Our first line of effort emphasizes that everything we do must contribute to the lethality of our military,” Secretary Mattis stated. “In war, an enemy will attack a perceived weakness. Therefore, we cannot adopt a single pre set of warfare. If deterrence fails, we must win.”

“To defend our way of life, our military will embrace change while holding fast to traditional proven attributes that make us the most formidable force on any battlefield. Those who would threaten America’s experiment in democracy must know if you threaten us, it will be your longest and worst day.”

“We will prioritize rebuilding readiness while modernizing our existing force,” he continued. “We will also be changing our force’s posture to prioritize readiness for war fighting and major combat, making us strategic predictable for our allies and operationally unpredictable for any adversary.”

Of course this is not the first time Mattis has been so quotable, as we noted in the past…

“I don’t have concerns. I create them”

The quote follows in a long tradition of magnificent Mattis quotes, including his answer to what keeps him awake at night:

“Nothing. I Keep Other People Awake At Night.”

And these classics:

“It’s quite fun to shoot them, you know. It’s a hell of a hoot. It’s fun to shoot some people.”

“There are some assholes in the world that just need to be shot.”

“Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet.”

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Undisclosed sources, most likely from the Philippine National Intelligence Coordinating Agency (NICA), gave the Philippine Daily Inquirer a treasure trove of new surveillance images which depicts Beijing’s drive to militarize the heavily disputed artificially-created islands it controls in the South China Sea.

The super high-resolution surveillance images were published on the Inquirer’s website on Monday but date back from June through December 2017. The photos were snapped around the disputed Spratly islands between the Philippines and Vietnam at an altitude of 1,500 meters (4,921 feet), and show how Beijing transformed the reefs into a network of air bases and naval bases.

Coincidentally, the Philippines also claimed land features in the Spratly Islands, namely on the Fiery Cross, Cuerteron, Gaven, Johnson South, Mischief, Subi and McKennan reefs. Further, Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan, and Vietnam all have made claims to this region, as well.

One Chinese professor from Xiamen University’s Southeast Asian Studies Center told the Global Times newspaper, “China has the right to build whatever it needs within its territory” in the South China Sea.

Back in December, the U.S. think-tank Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (Amti) reported that Kagitingan Reef had the most construction in 2017. In the surveillance picture below, Beijing has almost completed a large-scale airbase for the People’s Liberation Army Air Force on the reef. The base would be the first of its kind and provide air superiority in the South China Sea.

In a more in-depth view, The Inquirer labels Beijing’s strategic assets on the Kagitngan Reef, which happen to be critical systems to operate a large-scale airbase with enough space for a squadron of fighter aircraft.

Last month, the Philippines Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said, “the fact that they are actually using it now as military bases, as far as I’m concerned, is not new. It’s not news because we’ve always been against militarization of the area. But the good faith commitment is not to reclaim new islands. I hope that’s very clear.”

“The point is, has there been a breach of Chinese commitment not to reclaim any new islands or shoal in the area? For as long as there is none, then we continue to respect that they are true to their commitment not to do so. But I think, from the very beginning, China, we knew, was militarizing the area by reclaiming these areas and by using them as military bases,” he added.

The Inquirer outlines the three major airbases in the South China Sea situated on Kagitingan, Panganiban, and Zamora Reefs.

The runways for the three biggest reefs—Kagitingan, Panganiban and Zamora—appeared either completed or almost ready for use. Lighthouses, radomes, communication facilities, hangars and multistory buildings had also been built on the artificial islands. Amti, which described 2017 as a “constructive year for Chinese base building” in the South China Sea, noted the presence of underground tunnels, missile shelters, radars and high-frequency antennas on the artificial islands.

The Inquirer shows how the airbase on Panganiban Reef (as of Dec 2017) has almost neared completion.

The Inquirer further details the cargo ships, military warships, and supply vessels, which have been spotted throughout the Spratly islands providing logistical support to the military installations on the reefs.

Some photographs show cargo ships and supply vessels, which the article said appeared to be delivering construction supplies to the China-controlled islands.

Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, a member of the Philippine legal team who fought China’s claim to the South China Sea in the Hague arbitral court, criticized Roque’s position, “comparing it to trusting a thief,” said the Inquirer.

“You don’t rely on the good faith of the thief [who’s trying to break] into your house. If you have that mindset, you rely on the good faith of someone who’s trying to break into your house, that means you’re out [of touch] with reality. You’re in a fantasyland. That’s not how the world is put together. That’s not realpolitik,” Carpio said.

“The biggest [security] problem is China. If we lose [our maritime space in the West Philippine Sea], we lose it forever,” Carpio told the Inquirer in a recent interview, using the local name of the waters within the Philippines’ EEZ in the South China Sea.

“And the area we will lose is huge, as big as the land area of the Philippines, about 300,000 square kilometers,” Carpio said.

And lastly, the Inquirer asks what’s at stake if China becomes the dominant player in the South China Sea:

What happens next? Expect China to fully stock the military bases in the preperation for a resource conflict in the South China Sea… 

Unclassified Full Report: Surveillance Images Images Show Beijing’s militarisation of South China Sea via the Inquirer

Unclassified Full Report: Surveillance Images Images Show Beijing’s militarisation of South China Sea via the Inquirer

Unclassified Full Report: Surveillance Images Images Show Beijing’s militarisation of South China Sea via the Inquirer

Unclassified Full Report: Surveillance Images Images Show Beijing’s militarisation of South China Sea via the Inquirer

Unclassified Full Report: Surveillance Images Images Show Beijing’s militarisation of South China Sea via the Inquirer

 Unclassified Full Report: Surveillance Images Images Show Beijing’s militarisation of South China Sea via the Inquirer

Unclassified Full Report: Surveillance Images Images Show Beijing’s militarisation of South China Sea via the Inquirer

Unclassified Full Report: Surveillance Images Images Show Beijing’s militarisation of South China Sea via the Inquirer

Unclassified Full Report: Surveillance Images Images Show Beijing’s militarisation of South China Sea via the Inquirer

Unclassified Full Report: Surveillance Images Images Show Beijing’s militarisation of South China Sea via the Inquirer

Unclassified Full Report: Surveillance Images Images Show Beijing’s militarisation of South China Sea via the Inquirer

Unclassified Full Report: Surveillance Images Images Show Beijing’s militarisation of South China Sea via the Inquirer

Unclassified Full Report: Surveillance Images Images Show Beijing’s militarisation of South China Sea via the Inquirer

 

 

 

Unclassified Full Report: Surveillance Images Images Show Beijing’s militarisation of South China Sea via the Inquirer

Unclassified Full Report: Surveillance Images Images Show Beijing’s militarisation of South China Sea via the Inquirer

Unclassified Full Report: Surveillance Images Images Show Beijing’s militarisation of South China Sea via the Inquirer

Unclassified Full Report: Surveillance Images Images Show Beijing’s militarisation of South China Sea via the Inquirer

Unclassified Full Report: Surveillance Images Images Show Beijing’s militarisation of South China Sea via the Inquirer

Unclassified Full Report: Surveillance Images Images Show Beijing’s militarisation of South China Sea via the Inquirer

Unclassified Full Report: Surveillance Images Images Show Beijing’s militarisation of South China Sea via the Inquirer

Unclassified Full Report: Surveillance Images Images Show Beijing’s militarisation of South China Sea via the Inquirer

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Authored by Alex Gorka via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

Nothing like this ever happened even at the best of times.

The heads of three Russian intelligence agencies all visited the US simultaneously. This is an extraordinary and unprecedented event, especially at a time when that relationship has so greatly deteriorated. Sergei Naryshkin, the foreign intelligence chief, Alexander Bortnikov, who heads the Federal Security Service, and Lieutenant General (two stars) Igor Korobov, the head of Russia’s military intelligence, visited Washington in late January. Not much has been leaked to the media but it was reported that they met with CIA Director Mike Pompeo. There was no secrecy about the visit or attempts to hush it up. The Russian ambassador to the US, Anatoly Antonov, mentioned the event on television. He claimed that the visit had been a success and that despite the extreme tension between the two countries, their intelligence agencies were continuing to cooperate. As he put it, “Politics is politics, work is work. There are political proclamations, and there is real work.”

At least one of the Russian visitors is affected by the sanctions constraints. Obviously, President Donald Trump permitted the visit, as he is the only one who is authorized to temporarily waive those restrictions. No doubt there was a discussion of the terrorist threat posed by the Federal Security Service, but that team was headed by Mr. Naryshkin. The negotiations over the joint efforts to counter international terrorism could have been held anywhere. Such contacts between intelligence agencies do not require the top officials to head the delegations. Thus one must conclude that the talks addressed a much broader agenda – there must have been something really significant to discuss, with an agenda not limited to just one or two issues.

There was a particular context for this event.

It’s important to note that Kurt Volker, the US Special Representative for Ukraine, and Vladislav Surkov, the Russian president’s top aide, also met in late January in Dubai. The American official is known for his stints at the CIA. Many observers found it rather surprising that President Trump did not say anything critical about Russia in his remarks at the Davos World Economic Forum on Jan. 26. During his stay in Switzerland, the US president was too busy to meet Ukrainian President Poroshenko but managed to find time for talks with his “friend” Rwandan President Paul Kagame! The long- awaited “Kremlin List” was nothing but a meaningless administrative step.

There have been reports that Washington has been seeking ways to improve ties. The two countries’ top military leaders met last September to discuss Syria. More such events are planned for the future. The two foreign-office chiefs regularly hold private meetings. And Feb. 5 was an important date – both parties reported they had met their obligations under the New START Treaty.

This is the moment when the tide is starting to turn, as President Trump is seeing some success from his efforts to undermine public confidence in the Russiagate investigation. The president is going on the offensive. Donald Trump has given permission to release a memo, which alleges that there was an abuse of power by the FBI and the Justice Department in the investigation into Russia’s alleged meddling in the US presidential election. The document shines a light on the role of the “deep state” in America and its influence on the media. It provides a clue about who raised the hullabaloo over “Russiagate” and why, and shows that they are ready to go to any length to spoil the US relationship with Moscow and jam a spoke into Donald Trump’s wheel.

With the economy surging, the US president felt strong enough to approve the visit. This shows, better than any other example, that Russia is too important not to talk to. The two powers need to be engaged in dialog and the issues are too vital to ignore or sweep under the rug. President Trump has never shied away from claiming that he wants to repair that relationship. In his own words, “Putin is very important.” It’s an open secret that personal chemistry between leaders can play a very significant role in kick-starting the reconciliation process. With the memo released and “Russiagate” going nowhere, the president may have more supporters in Congress after the 2018 midterm elections. The US policy on Russia may be one of the things to change.

The odds are slim of Russia and the United States becoming close partners. This makes engagement, “deconfliction,” and interaction in certain areas even more important. The contacts between the intelligence chiefs indicate that the parties are serious about bringing about positive changes. We may never know what the officials talked about, but the very fact of the meeting speaks for itself. It really is impossible to underestimate its importance. Looks like there might well be a light at the end of the tunnel.

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After building the world’s largest lithium battery in Australia nearly 40 days ahead of schedule, Tesla has announced plans to build the world’s largest “virtual power plant” by outfitting 50,000 homes in South Australia with solar panels and Tesla battery storage units over the next four years, slashing participants’ energy bill by 30%.

Beginning with a trial of 1100 Housing Trust properties, a 5kW solar panel system and 13.5kWh Tesla Powerwall 2 battery will be installed at no charge to the household and financed through the sale of electricity.

Following the trial, which has now commenced, systems are set to be installed at a further 24,000 Housing Trust properties, and then a similar deal offered to all South Australian households, with a plan for at least 50,000 households to participate over the next four years. –ourenergyplan.sa.gov.au

Over 6,500 households have already applied for the 250MW program (which will provide the panels for free), tweeted South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill on Monday.

More than 6,500 South Australian households have signed up to register their interest in the world’s biggest Virtual Power Plant.

To sign up and find out more, visit https://t.co/TkdmqBUrG9 pic.twitter.com/eXCnU6Q0i3

— Jay Weatherill (@JayWeatherill) February 4, 2018

The AUD$32 million ($25 million USD) project bankrolled by taxpayers and a state-funded techonlogy grant will be recovered by selling the electricity to customers on the grid. “We will use people’s homes as a way to generate energy for the South Australian grid, with participating households benefiting with significant savings in their energy bills,” says South Australia’s premier Jay Weatherill. “More renewable energy means cheaper power for all South Australians.”

Price predicts utility bills for participating households will be slashed by 30%. The installations will begin with 100 households in a low-income housing community. Those systems should be completed by the end of June. Then another 1,000 systems will be installed in similar properties by the end of the year.

After that, another 24,000 Housing Trust residents will be offered the opportunity to join the program, followed by 25,000 more households over the next 4 years. Minister for Social Housing Zoe Bettison said the decision to install the systems in Housing Trust homes would assist the most vulnerable. “We know that people in social housing can often struggle meeting their everyday needs and this initiative will take some pressure off their household budget,” she said. –cleantechnica.com

South Australia’s 1.7 million residents regularly suffer power outages and energy reductions, with several major incidents leaving people without power following storms and a massive heat wave. 

Off to a good start

Tesla’s lithium battery storage project has already proven its worth; after the 129 MWh installation was activated on December 2, the Loy Yang coal power plant – one of the largest in Australia, went offline – depriving the grid of 560 MW of electricity, enough for 170,000 homes. Within 140 milliseconds, the Tesla “Hornsdale Power Reserve Battery System” kicked in, providing the grid with 100 MW of power – buying grid operators enough time to reroute other power sources and make up for the shortfall. Utility customers were largely unaffected. 

“That’s a record and the national operators were shocked at how quickly and efficiently the battery was able to deliver this type of energy into the market,” said State energy minister, Tom Koutsantonis, who added “Until now, if we got a call to turn on our emergency generators it would take us 10 to 15 minutes to get them fired up and operating which is a record time compared to other generators.”

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Authored by Derrick Broze via ActivistPost.com,

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection is preparing to launch a pilot program to scan the faces of drivers and passengers at Anzalduas Port near McAllen, Texas.

On Thursday the U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced plans for a new pilot program that will test out biometric facial recognition technology as part of an effort to identify fugitives or terror suspects. The Austin-American Statesman reported on the announcement:

Thanks to quantum leaps in facial recognition technology, especially over the past year, the future is arriving sooner than most Americans realize. As early as this summer, CBP will set up a pilot program to digitally scan the faces of drivers and passengers — while they are in moving vehicles — at the busy Anzalduas Port of Entry outside of McAllen, the agency announced Thursday.

The Texas-Mexico border is being used as the testing grounds for the technology. The results of the pilot program will be used to help roll out a national program along the entire southern and northern borders. The Statesman notes that the Department of Energy hired researchers at Tennessee’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory to help overcome the difficulties of using facial recognition technology on moving vehicles. The researchers developed a method for combating window tinting and sun glare which can make a vehicle’s windows impenetrable to cameras. The facial recognition technology being developed for the pilot program will be capable of identifying the driver, front passengers, and the passengers riding in the back.

The CBP currently operates facial recognition exit programs at almost a dozen international airports in the United States. Colleen Manaher, the CBP’s executive director of planning, program analysis and evaluation, told the Statesman that travelers have been accepting of the technology and noted that “we can thank the Apples and the Googles for that.”

Although the CBP claims implementing facial recognition technology could eventually eliminate the need for passports, boarding passes and other travel documents, the technology is without a doubt an invasion of privacy. Both the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Georgetown University’s Center on Privacy and Technology have called for further investigation into the potential dangers of a massive facial recognition apparatus. In the U.S., only Texas and Illinois have laws preventing the use of biometric data for commercial purposes.

The new Texas pilot program is only the latest effort by the federal government to implement a wide range of biometric and surveillance programs around the United States.

In August 2017 Activist Post first reported on the plans to launch a national program scan the faces of all airline passengers in the U.S. Customs and Border Protection launched a “Traveler Verification Service” (TVS) that intends to use facial recognition on all airline passengers, including U.S. citizens, boarding flights exiting the United States. That same month it was reported that thirty-one sheriffs along the U.S.-Mexico border voted unanimously to adopt tools that will allow the collection and storing of iris scans.

Additionally, Activist Post just last week reported that the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency now has access to a nationwide license plate recognition database after finalizing a contract with the industry’s top license plate data collection company. This database allows ICE to search a vehicles whereabouts over the last five years, as well as developing “hot lists” that can track particular vehicles indefinitely.

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is currently facing a lawsuit for failing to release records related to the agency’s use of devices to gather biometric data from immigrants. Mijente and the National Immigration Project of National Lawyers Guild are asking a federal court to force ICE and the Department of Homeland Security to release information related to the use of handheld devices used to gather biometric data from immigrants during raids.

These programs are reminiscent of mass surveillance systems established in Russia and China.

The truth of the matter is that all three nations are taking different paths towards the same goal: control and monitoring of their population and suppression of critical thought or opposition. The only way to stand against this is to refuse to fund the programs at every turn and sharing the information. It might be too late to stop the establishment of these programs, but the people could potentially form enough of a resistance to establish free communities and neighborhoods where these invasive technologies are rejected.

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China’s overseas shipments held up (exports +11.1% YoY in USD terms) despite the stronger yuan and rising trade tensions with the U.S., but it was the imports that stunned many, rising 36.9% YoY in USD terms, slamming the trade surplus well below expectations.

In Yuan terms the spike in imports was just as impressive…

In USD terms, the China trade balance printed $20.34bn, well below the $54.65bn expectation and collapsing from last month.

Perhaps in an effort to show there is no trade war, January exports to U.S. rose 7.5%, but ‘friendly’ imports surged 20.5% on the year.

While coal (colder than normal) and oil imports (record) surged in January more than expected, it is crucial to understand that the Lunar New Year, which began earlier in 2017, may have distorted the data notably.

Nevertheless, stocks extended their losses on the data…

 

But the big impact is extending the losses from the US session in the Yuan as it crashes 5 handles after the data…

Offshore Yuan is now down over 11 handles on the day and down 1.5% in the last two days.

It would appear all bets are on again for another devaluation.

Today is actually the biggest drop in the Yuan since the Aug 2015 devaluation (and remember what ripples that sent through global markets)

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Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,

After the extraordinary sudden loss in equity values, the last two days brought gains back to the stock indices (albeit with a late day tumble today).

What happened? Did the market sneeze, cough, or was something misread and today perceived in a different light?

In my opinion this is what happened:

The Plunge Protection Team, as they have done on previous equity market drops, or the Federal Reserve operating for the Working Group on Financial Markets, sent a purchase order for S&P futures to the trading floor. The hedge funds, seeing the incoming bid, front-ran the bid by stepping in and buying S&P futures. This pushed the market back up, ended the correction, and prevented financial panic.

The Plunge Protection Team was created in 1987, approaching the end of the Reagan administration, in order to prevent a market correction from costing George H. W. Bush the presidential election as Reagan’s successor. The Republican Establishment was desperate to reestablish its control over the party. The Republican Establishment, convinced by Wall Street that the Reagan tax cut would result in high inflation, found themselves instead confronted with a long economic expansion. In those days that meant that the expansion could be nearing its end, and a stock market correction could deny the presidency to George H.W. Bush.

To prevent any such correction, the US Treasury and Federal Reserve created a “working group” to intervene in the stock market in order to support values. Whenever the market starts to drop, the team purchases S&P futures which halts the market decline.

We have witnessed this on several occasions. And, most likely, again this week.

Pundits who speak about “market forces” are speaking about something that doesn’t exist. “Market forces” are the interventions that support existing values with money infusions.

How long can the fraudulent valuation of equities continue?

My sometimes coauthor Dave Kranzler and I think it can continue until the dollar as reserve currency comes under attack. Neither of us believed that the fraud could be perpetrated this long. The two other world powers, Russia and China, are moving away from use of the US dollar, but the consequence for the dollar could still be in the future. In the meantime, liquidity supplied by central banks and the interventions of the Plunge Protection Team could send equity prices higher.

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