Month: March 2024

Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times,

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has revealed a series of specific suspicious red flags that could trigger enforcement actions when it comes to mistaken or fraudulent applications for a pandemic-era tax credit.

The IRS indicated in a March 20 notice that there are seven suspicious signs of a bad claim for the employee retention credit (ERC), which is a refundable tax credit designed for businesses that continued paying employees during COVID-19 shutdowns.

The reason the agency is now revealing these telltale signs of incorrect or fraudulent ERC claims is because March 22 is the deadline to apply for a voluntary disclosure program that will let employers who filed bad claims avoid penalties and interest.

Earlier, the IRS found that a large number of improper ERC claims were pushed by predatory promoters on unwitting businesses, with an investigation by the IRS Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) division uncovering more than $2.8 billion of potentially fraudulent ERC claims.

To fight the wave of dubious ERC claims, the IRS said it had sharply increased compliance action through audits and criminal investigations, with more planned in the future.

However, because of the sheer number of wrongly filed ERC claims and the predatory promotions surrounding them, the IRS developed several ways to get taxpayers who incorrectly claimed the credit to pay it back with minimal penalty.

One of these is the voluntary disclosure program, which lets people who filed bad ERC claims come forward to the IRS and, in exchange for being forthcoming, they only have to pay back 80 percent of what they owe.

Another is a special claim withdrawal process, which lets businesses that filed a questionable claim to withdraw it and avoid the risk of getting an illegal refund that could prove costly.

Generally, anyone who improperly claims the ERC must pay it back, possibly with penalties and interest. The IRS has warned that a business or tax-exempt group could find itself in a much worse cash position if it has to pay back a bad claim than if it had never claimed it in the first place.

The IRS says its latest disclosure of seven warning signs of a bad ERC claim is meant to help businesses review if their claim is questionable and so give them the opportunity to take action by the March 22 deadline.

7 Bad Claim Red Flags

The first warning sign of a potentially bad ERC claim is that it’s claimed for all quarters for which it was available.

Some promoters who pushed employers to file ERC claims advised them to claim the credit for all available quarters, which may not align with eligibility criteria.

“Qualifying for all quarters is uncommon,” the IRS said in the notice, while urging businesses to carefully review their eligibility for each quarter if they want to make sure they don’t fall afoul of the law.

The second red flag that could alert the IRS to a potentially fraudulent or incorrect claim is that it was filed when there was no government order in place that fully or partially suspended the operations of the business claiming the credit.

Some promoters told businesses that they could claim the ERC when any government order was in place in their area, even one that didn’t require the employer to partially or fully suspend its operations.

“This is false,” the IRS said in the notice.

Eligibility for the ERC was limited to periods during which a COVID-19-related order (not guidance or recommendation) was in effect that fully or partially suspended a given employer’s operations.

The third suspicious sign was claiming the ERC for all wages paid to every employee on the payroll.

There were dollar limits and varying ERC amounts, with employers being required to meet certain regulations for wages to be considered qualified wages for a proper claim.

Employers who used the same credit amount across multiple tax periods for each employee is a standout red flag, the IRS says.

The fourth warning sign is claiming a credit solely based on supply chain disruption.

“A supply chain disruption by itself doesn’t qualify an employer for ERC,” the IRS says.

The fifth red flag is employers claiming a credit for the entire calendar quarter when operations were suspended for only part of that quarter.

“It’s possible, but uncommon, for an employer to qualify for ERC for the entire calendar quarter,” the IRS says.

If a pandemic-related government order suspended business operations for part of a given quarter, then the ERC cannot be legitimately claimed for the whole quarter.

The sixth warning sign is that a business that claimed the ERC didn’t employ anyone for part or all of the period for which they’re claiming it.

“Some taxpayers claimed the ERC but records available to the IRS show they didn’t have any employees,” the IRS said. “Others have claimed ERC for tax periods before they even had an employer identification number with the IRS, meaning the business didn’t exist during the eligibility period.”

The seventh red flag for businesses that should alert them that their ERC claim could be bad is if promoters told them that they had “nothing to lose” by filing one.

“Businesses that incorrectly claim the ERC risk repayment, penalties, interest, audit and other expenses,” the IRS says.

The ERC, which is somewhat complex, is available to employers, not individual taxpayers.

Since the program was enacted, over 3.6 million claims have come in, with the IRS saying that ERC-related fraud became worse over time.

Voluntary Disclosure Program

The IRS’s voluntary disclosure program, first unveiled in December 2023, lets employers who wrongly filed for the ERC get right with the tax authorities by admitting to the mistake.

In exchange for volunteering this information, businesses get to keep 20 percent of the incorrectly received credits, and they won’t be charged any interest or penalties on the remaining 80 percent that they repay.

Those that are unable to repay the 80 percent can potentially be approved for an installment agreement, which will let them pay it back over a longer period.

Program applicants must not be under criminal investigation, nor be under an IRS employment tax examination, nor can they have received an IRS notice and demand for repayment of the ERC.

The IRS is also using the program to get at unscrupulous promoters who used aggressive marketing techniques to lure businesses into wrongly claiming the ERC.

In order to qualify for the program, employers must provide the IRS with the names, addresses, and telephone numbers of any advisers or tax preparers who advised or assisted with the claims.

The deadline to apply for the voluntary disclosure program is March 22, 2024.

Interest on money owed to the IRS compounds daily and the failure-to-pay penalty accrues monthly and can rise to as much as 25 percent of the owed amount.

Withdrawal Program

Another program the IRS rolled out in October 2023 was a special withdrawal process that lets businesses that filed a questionable claim withdraw it and avoid the risk of costly penalties and interest.

The withdrawal option lets employers avoid future problems by withdrawing pending ERC claims if they suspect they may have been tricked into filing and have not yet been paid.

Even if a business has received the ERC refund check but hasn’t yet cashed or deposited it, it can still withdraw its claim.

Claims that are withdrawn will be treated by the IRS as if they were never filed, and the agency won’t impose penalties or interest.

Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, observed by Muslims worldwide as a month of fasting, prayer, reflection, and community.

And despite it being first and foremost a spiritual period, business activity in certain sectors – food, retail, and entertainment – tends to rise in Muslim-majority countries.

As a result, some global brands have begun to see this period as an opportunity to market their identity, leaning in on the theme of connection and community.

TGM Research conducted a survey in 2023, asking 9,672 respondents in 15 countries a variety of questions. One of them included:

Which brands come to mind first when thinking of Ramadan?

Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu visualizes their responses in the graphic above and delve into a little bit of detail below.

Ranked: Global Brands Associated With Ramadan

Coca-Cola leads the lists with 8.1% of those surveyed picking the beverage giant as the brand they most associate with Ramadan.

In case this comes as a surprise, Coca-Cola has launched numerous ad campaigns for Ramadan in previous years, focusing on spreading happiness and kindness, drawing upon the power of human connection to create a positive image of the brand.

In second place is the Marjan Group, a producer of water tanks and filtration systems, with about half (4.3%) of Coke’s presence.

At third, is another beverage company, Vimto, founded in 1908 in the United Kingdom. In 1927 Vimto introduced its cordial to the Middle East, which has become a key part of breaking fasts during the holy month.

Saudi Arabian multinational dairy company, Almarai was picked fourth by 3.5% of the respondents, and after it, comes three global brands—Nestle, Pepsi, Nike—all sitting at 3.2%.

Aside from several ad campaigns, Nike launched a special-edition sneaker named “dusk to dawn” in 2018, a nod to how Ramadan observers went about their day while fasting.

The shoe was created in collaboration with Lebanese artist, Ali Chaaban, who aimed to “create a new essence to running in the Arab world.”

Nike has also created several campaigns featuring Muslim athletes, including Zahra Lari, an Emirati figure skater who was the first woman to compete internationally while wearing a hijab.

Authored by Marina Zhang via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

People who have taken at least three doses of the original version of the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine have been strongly immune imprinted, a study by the University of Washington (UW) found.

Consequently, when vaccinated with the most recent COVID-19 XBB.1.5 mRNA boosters, recipients produced few to no antibodies specific to the XBB.1.5 variant.

Immune imprinting occurs when previous infections or vaccinations leave such a strong immune memory that the body continues to produce immune cells and antibodies targeting the previous immune experience—even when exposed to a new variant or vaccine.

“[Immune imprinting] could be a problem if the person was unable to mount a useful immune response against a new variant,” Dr. Stanley Perlman, an immunologist and microbiologist at the University of Iowa, told The Epoch Times. He was not involved in the study.

While that did not occur in this study, most of the antibodies made following vaccination targeted the original COVID-19 variant and not XBB.1.5. 

Surprising Findings

“Imprinting is not a new concept, but the situation we are looking at seems to be quite unique,” said David Veesler, who has a doctorate in structural biology, is a professor and chair in the Department of Biochemistry at UW, and an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, in a press release.

Immune imprinting is a well-recognized phenomenon that can occur with other infections and viruses.

New influenza infections distinct from previous variants can overcome imprinting from influenza vaccinations and infections.

However, in the UW study, immune imprinting persisted even among those infected with new omicron variants.

“It is completely different from what we know from the influenza virus,” said Mr. Veesler.

“Immune imprinting persists after multiple exposures to Omicron spikes through vaccination and infection, including post XBB.1.5 booster vaccination, which will need to be considered to guide future vaccination,” the authors wrote.

More than 20 people with a history of three or more Wuhan-variant mRNA vaccines participated in the study. Most had been infected with pre- and post-omicron COVID-19 infections.

In addition to the original mRNA vaccines, most participants took the bivalent booster or the XBB.1.5 booster. By the time of the study, all participants had taken four to seven shots.

The authors found that most of the antibodies produced after XBB.1.5 mRNA inoculation were best at neutralizing the original Wuhan COVID-19 variant.

The antibodies had the second-greatest neutralizing potency against the BA.2.86 omicron variant. The antibodies were third most potent against XBB.1.5 in people who took the XBB.1.5 vaccine.

These antibodies were cross-reactive, meaning they could also bind to other variants, including the XBB.1.5 variants.

However, there were few to no antibodies specific to XBB.1.5.

Some people did produce new immune cells that recognized only XBB.1.5. However, of the 12 participants evaluated, only five had immune cells that recognized XBB.1.5 but not the Wuhan variant.

“Most of the antibodies recalled by the updated vaccine boosters are cross-reactive and help block new variants, which is a good thing. However, could we do an even better job? The answer is most likely yes,” said Mr. Vessler.

2 Possible Reasons

“There are two leading hypotheses about what we are seeing,” Mr. Veesler said in the press release, “and I don’t know which of the two options explains it yet.”

One hypothesis is that residents of Seattle, where most of the samples came from, were exposed to the virus so many times—mainly through vaccination but also infection—that they developed antibodies and immune memory cells preferable to the original virus.

“People in Seattle, including myself, have been so compliant,” Mr. Veesler said. “We have been exposed many, many times over the past four years through vaccination and usually at least one infection. And that’s very unusual to have so many exposures in such a short amount of time—up to seven vaccine doses in the cohort we analyzed.”

Another reason is that the mRNA vaccine creates a more robust immune imprinting effect than previously known vaccines. The authors cited another study that found inoculating with killed COVID-19 viruses rendered a reduced imprinting effect in humans.

“Inactivated vaccines induce a weaker immune response, so there is less opportunity for the response to be biased [toward one variant],” Dr. Perlman said.

“mRNA vaccines may have been so good and elicited such strong immune responses that the imprinting may be stronger than what we have been used to seeing with vaccines for other viruses such as for influenza virus,” Mr. Veesler said.

On Saturday Mossad chief David Barnea and his American counterpart, Bill Burns, left Doha following the latest round of talks on Israel-Hamas truce efforts. Regional reports say progress is still stalled, but negotiators are said to be getting down to “details and a ratio for the exchange of hostages and prisoners.”

Currently there’s heavy fighting as Israeli forces have encircled hospitals in Khan Younis. A major Israeli assault at al-Shifa hospital reportedly resulted in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) capturing some 800 Hamas suspects, including commanders. The IDF further said that at least 170 Hamas gunmen were killed in the weekend raid.

As major battles ensue at Khan Younis, and as Prime Minister Netanyahu is readying the military to go into Rafah even amid Washington objections, Hamas is complaining about “misinformation” emerging from the Qatar-hosted truce talks.

Hamas has said the Israeli side is refusing to take its conditions seriously, with Israeli negotiators only focusing on the release of all the hostages and not Hamas’ demand of a ‘total withdrawal’ of Israeli troops from the strip and a permanent end to the war.

Hamas’s political bureau official Bassem Naim saod “Hamas has clearly told the mediators that we cannot accept negotiating any prisoner deal unless the Israelis give these guarantees.”

Interestingly it appears that Hamas is seeking to use current strained relations between Washington and Tel Aviv as leverage. The Hamas representative further echoed talking points of anti-Netanyahu demonstrators in Israel as well:

Naim said it was “shocking” that the latest Israeli proposals retract points previously agreed on at prior talks, the news agency reported. 

“Now suddenly, the Israelis are rejecting these. We believe it is not about a ceasefire, it is about Netanyahu using the negotiations as a cover to gain more time to continue his plans for the complete bombardment of the rest of the Gaza Strip, including Rafah, and to relieve international pressure,” said Naim.

“We told the negotiators tonight we’re not ready to discuss any further proposals. There are talks between the Israelis and the negotiators. There are no talks with us,” he continued.

He said the West must exert more pressure: “It is up to the superpower Americans and Europeans to exercise more pressure on Netanyahu not endanger the whole region and undermine any chance of long-term stability, security and prosperity,” Naim said.

“God, I’m so scared, God help us !
I can’t take it anymore !
I want to go home !”

🚨Heartbreaking: A frightened child trembles and cries among the forcibly displaced inside Al-Shifa Medical Complex in #Gaza City, under heavy and intense Israeli army bombardment. pic.twitter.com/xpNFpB3yzJ

— Nour Naim| نُور (@NourNaim88) March 18, 2024

In the meantime, Israeli hostages continue to die in captivity, with Hamas announcing the death of a 34-year-old Israeli captive on Sunday, identified as Yagev Buchshtav. The group said this was due to “lack of medicine and food”. A Hamas statement said, “We had previously warned that enemy prisoners are suffering from the same conditions that our people are suffering from.” 

Authored by John Cody via ReMix News,

The Pakistani family was described as “well-integrated” by the town’s left-wing mayor. Now, they are accused of burning down their own house for insurance money…

In December of last year, the story broke in Germany of a Pakistani family targeted in an arson attack by right-wing extremists on Christmas Day.

It had the makings of a perfect story for use by the left, including “Nazis” targeting an innocent foreign family on Christmas day.

The Pakistani family actually wrote the slogan “Foreigners out” twice on the walls of the burned-out house, according to the public prosecutor’s office.

Police now say it was all a lie and that the arson attack was carried out by the foreign family against their own house for insurance money.

Five family members have now been arrested, including the house owner and his brother-in-law.

They are also accused of spraying racist graffiti in the house, including “foreigners out” twice.

After the house fire in Wächtersbach, which is located between the cities of Frankfurt and Fulda, politicians from the Greens and the left attended candlelight vigils denouncing racism, while outpourings “solidarity” against “Nazis” came in from all directions.

Police and fire department investigators initially suspected right-wing extremists were responsible for the arson attack.

The Pakistani family was not home during the incident and told police they were visiting a friend, which meant none of them were injured in the attack.

The fire, which investigators now say was set by the family, raged for eight hours on Christmas day in 2023, with damage estimated at €350,000.

Prosecutors say that the family used the right-wing slogans to lead investigators away from the Pakistani family, according to German newspaper Bild.

The investigators focused their efforts on the 47-year-old homeowner, who police noticed had fresh burns on his arm despite claiming he was not home during the fire. Prosecutors believe the family set the fire to claim insurance money.

AfD reacts to the arson arrests

The Alternative for Germany (AfD) in Hesse, the German state where the arson attack took place, has since commented on the case in a statement:

“It was a slap in the face to many thousands of AfD voters. Just a few weeks ago, the citizens had placed their trust in us with a great election result (in Hesse). In some communities, we are even the strongest force, even ahead of the governing parties. For our political competitors, the house fire was obviously a welcome opportunity to inflict hatred and agitation on our party and our voters. Almost reflexively, the SPD, the Left and the Greens classified this crime as politically motivated.

“Waechtersbach’s mayor (a member of SPD), who is said to have known the affected Pakistani family to be well integrated, took the same line. At this point, we can also answer the question of what the AfD would do differently. In this case, we would raise the bar for successful integration a little higher. Anyone who attracts attention with criminal acts in their freely chosen host country at least raises doubts about successful integration. But we now trust that the German judiciary will make an appropriate assessment. And an apology from the protagonists of the vigil is now in order.”

Far worse arson attack last year

It would not be the first time foreigners in Germany have put lives at risk with an arson attack to claim insurance money. Just a month before this attack, in November 2023, a father and son stood trial for injuring 17 people when they intentionally burned down their poorly performing fashion business to claim insurance money.

Both men were sentenced to life in prison for the heinous attack in December 2023.

The regional court in Aachen heard how the son, 22-year-old Karsan K., poured 13 liters of gasoline into the fashion store in Eschweiler back in March this year and set it on fire, causing a mass explosion that left dozens injured and resulted in millions of euros in damage.

The two men required an interpreter during their trial.

Read more here…

Nearly 60% of the world’s 8 billion population lives in Asia: a vast continent sprawling over 44 million km², home to sprawling megacities, high-altitude deserts, the world’s biggest plateau, and impenetrable rainforests.

Visual Capitalist’s Pallavi Rao visualizes Asia’s population patterns using data from WorldPop – a research group based out of the University of Southampton that tracks population growth and movement across the globe.

A spike on the map denotes higher population density.

Other figures in this article are sourced from World Population Review (population numbers) and the World Bank (area).

Ranked: Asia’s Countries By Population

Immediately the map visualizes at impressive scale a rather well-known fact: that India and China together account for 35% of the world’s population just by themselves.

Pakistan (ranked 4th in population) and Bangladesh (ranked 5th) together account for another 400 million people.

The role of the Himalayas in this distribution is understated: the mountain range is a source of ten major rivers, flowing to India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and China, providing fresh water to 1.3 billion people in its watershed.

Rank	Country	Population	Area
1	🇮🇳 India	1,437,982,661	3,287,260 km²
2	🇨🇳 China	1,425,317,720	9,562,910 km²
3	🇮🇩 Indonesia	279,119,626	1,916,907 km²
4	🇵🇰 Pakistan	243,772,596	796,100 km²
5	🇧🇩 Bangladesh	174,173,808	147,570 km²
6	🇷🇺 Russia	144,101,449	17,098,250 km²
7	🇯🇵 Japan	122,833,540	377,974 km²
8	🇵🇭 Philippines	119,106,224	300,000 km²
9	🇻🇳 Vietnam	99,308,524	331,340 km²
10	🇮🇷 Iran	89,626,661	1,745,150 km²
11	🇹🇷 Turkey	86,127,389	785,350 km²
12	🇹🇭 Thailand	71,863,281	513,120 km²
13	🇲🇲 Myanmar	54,849,472	676,590 km²
14	🇰🇷 South Korea	51,756,284	100,430 km²
15	🇮🇶 Iraq	46,225,266	435,050 km²
16	🇦🇫 Afghanistan	43,026,322	652,860 km²
17	🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia	37,473,929	2,149,690 km²
18	🇺🇿 Uzbekistan	35,522,965	448,924 km²
19	🇾🇪 Yemen	34,982,136	555,000 km²
20	🇲🇾 Malaysia	34,562,556	330,411 km²
21	🇳🇵 Nepal	31,136,781	147,180 km²
22	🇰🇵 North Korea	26,220,850	120,540 km²
23	🇸🇾 Syria	24,010,759	185,180 km²
24	🇹🇼 Taiwan	23,942,522	36,197 km²
25	🇱🇰 Sri Lanka	21,933,155	65,610 km²
26	🇰🇿 Kazakhstan	19,764,158	2,724,900 km²
27	🇰🇭 Cambodia	17,071,236	181,040 km²
28	🇯🇴 Jordan	11,368,898	89,318 km²
29	🇦🇿 Azerbaijan	10,448,636	86,600 km²
30	🇹🇯 Tajikistan	10,277,238	141,379 km²
31	🇦🇪 UAE	9,569,300	98,648 km²
32	🇮🇱 Israel	9,272,228	22,070 km²
33	🇱🇦 Laos	7,736,681	236,800 km²
34	🇰🇬 Kyrgyzstan	6,807,948	199,950 km²
35	🇹🇲 Turkmenistan	6,573,631	488,100 km²
36	🇸🇬 Singapore	6,119,203	728 km²
37	🇵🇸 Palestine	5,494,963	6,025 km²
38	🇱🇧 Lebanon	5,257,501	10,450 km²
39	🇴🇲 Oman	4,692,824	309,500 km²
40	🇰🇼 Kuwait	4,337,703	17,820 km²
41	🇬🇪 Georgia	3,720,477	69,700 km²
42	🇲🇳 Mongolia	3,480,040	1,564,116 km²
43	🇦🇲 Armenia	2,777,979	29,743 km²
44	🇶🇦 Qatar	2,730,864	11,490 km²
45	🇧🇭 Bahrain	1,494,745	790 km²
46	🇹🇱 Timor-Leste	1,374,025	14,870 km²
47	🇨🇾 Cyprus	1,260,138	9,250 km²
48	🇧🇹 Bhutan	790,918	38,390 km²
49	🇲🇻 Maldives	518,765	300 km²
50	🇧🇳 Brunei	454,869	5,770 km²

Note: Russia and Georgia are typically regarded as European countries for cultural reasons, despite their geographic locations. They have been included in the dataset for context only.

Other countries that are covered by red: Indonesia (ranked 4th in population), Japan (ranked 7th), and the Philippines (8th), are all some of Asia’s most populous countries.

They also have some of the world’s densest cities:

• Manila: 42,857 people/km²

• Mumbai: 28,195 people/km²

• Karachi: 24,000 people/km²

• Jakarta: 14,464 people/km²

Tokyo and Beijing—despite being some of the world’s largest cities by population—record lower densities in comparison, helped by their much larger administrative areas.

But when sorted by average population density across the entire country, the ranks look a little bit different.

Ranked: Asia’s Countries By Population Density

The city state of Singapore is the densest country in Asia, with more than 8,000 people/km². Far behind it, the similarly sized in area Bahrain has one-sixth the population and ranks second (1,892/km²) in Asia’s densest countries.

Rank	Country	Population Density
1	🇸🇬 Singapore	8,405 people/km2
2	🇧🇭 Bahrain	1,892 people/km2
3	🇲🇻 Maldives	1,729 people/km2
4	🇧🇩 Bangladesh	1,180 people/km2
5	🇵🇸 Palestine	912 people/km2
6	🇹🇼 Taiwan	661 people/km2
7	🇰🇷 South Korea	515 people/km2
8	🇱🇧 Lebanon	503 people/km2
9	🇮🇳 India	437 people/km2
10	🇮🇱 Israel	420 people/km2
11	🇵🇭 Philippines	397 people/km2
12	🇱🇰 Sri Lanka	334 people/km2
13	🇯🇵 Japan	325 people/km2
14	🇵🇰 Pakistan	306 people/km2
15	🇻🇳 Vietnam	300 people/km2
16	🇰🇼 Kuwait	243 people/km2
17	🇶🇦 Qatar	238 people/km2
18	🇰🇵 North Korea	218 people/km2
19	🇳🇵 Nepal	212 people/km2
20	🇨🇳 China	149 people/km2
21	🇮🇩 Indonesia	146 people/km2
22	🇹🇭 Thailand	140 people/km2
23	🇨🇾 Cyprus	136 people/km2
24	🇸🇾 Syria	130 people/km2
25	🇯🇴 Jordan	127 people/km2
26	🇦🇿 Azerbaijan	120 people/km2
27	🇹🇷 Turkey	110 people/km2
28	🇮🇶 Iraq	106 people/km2
29	🇲🇾 Malaysia	105 people/km2
30	🇦🇪 UAE	97 people/km2
31	🇦🇲 Armenia	94 people/km2
32	🇰🇭 Cambodia	94 people/km2
33	🇹🇱 Timor-Leste	92 people/km2
34	🇲🇲 Myanmar	81 people/km2
35	🇧🇳 Brunei	79 people/km2
36	🇺🇿 Uzbekistan	79 people/km2
37	🇹🇯 Tajikistan	73 people/km2
38	🇦🇫 Afghanistan	66 people/km2
39	🇾🇪 Yemen	63 people/km2
40	🇬🇪 Georgia	54 people/km2
41	🇮🇷 Iran	51 people/km2
42	🇰🇬 Kyrgyzstan	34 people/km2
43	🇱🇦 Laos	33 people/km2
44	🇧🇹 Bhutan	21 people/km2
45	🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia	17 people/km2
46	🇴🇲 Oman	15 people/km2
47	🇹🇲 Turkmenistan	13 people/km2
48	🇷🇺 Russia	8 people/km2
49	🇰🇿 Kazakhstan	7 people/km2
50	🇲🇳 Mongolia	2 people/km2

Note: Russia and Georgia are typically regarded as European countries for cultural reasons, despite their geographic locations. They have been included in the dataset for context only.

Bangladesh, with 1,180 people/km², has the rare distinction of being a top five Asian country by both population and average population density.

Meanwhile, India is 9th in population density (437 people/km²), its large landmass bringing down the average considerably.

Similarly, China nearly breaks into the top 20 with a population density of 149 people/km². Despite its vast population, the country’s immense size presents a challenge, particularly in its western regions, which are largely inhospitable to substantial human settlement due to the presence of mountains, the Tibetan plateau, and two deserts.

At the bottom of the rankings, Mongolia (2 people/km²) and Kazakhstan (7 people/km²) are some of the least dense countries in the world.

Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Modernity.news,

Figures released by the UK government reveal that Muslims make up 18 per cent of the prison population, despite comprising only 6.5 per cent of the population in general.

“Ministry of Justice (MoJ) data has revealed that there were 15,594 Muslim prisoners in England and Wales in September last year, accounting for 18 per cent of all inmates despite comprising only 6.5 per cent of the population,” reports the Telegraph.

Muslims represent the only religion that is overrepresented in prison compared to their general population figure.

The prison population by religion. pic.twitter.com/w5isWUbLR9

— David Atherton (@DaveAtherton20) March 19, 2024

In another revealing statistic, around 19.9 per cent of those Muslim prisoners are white, which is three times the general population, where only 7.8 per cent are recorded as white.

According to the Telegraph, the number emphasizes “that gangs in some jails are ordering prisoners to become Muslims or face violence.”

“A report two years ago by Jonathan Hall KC, the independent reviewer of terror legislation, revealed that Muslim terrorists had been able to seize control of prison wings and set up sharia courts behind bars because prison staff were so concerned about being accused of racism,” reports the newspaper.

Meanwhile, on the continent, the Interior Minister of the State of Bavaria, Joachim Herrmann, blamed the increasing migrant population for a spike in crime in the region.

“According to the crime stats, a total of 39.6 percent of the 266,390 suspects in crimes across the state last year were non-Germans despite only comprising 16 percent of the state’s population. This corresponds to an increase of 20.5 percent compared to 2022 when 32,037 immigrants were suspected of criminal offenses,” reports Remix News.

“We will not accept the increase in crime, even if it is a nationwide trend for which foreigners and immigrants are particularly responsible,” Herrmann said in a press release.

In related comments, French politician Marion Marechal explained the increasing sense of isolation that Europeans are starting to feel as a result of mass migration and globalism in general.

“I am waking up at the age of 34 in a European Union which is a digital colony of the United States, an economic colony of China, a demographic colony of Africa, and is becoming a religious and cultural colony of Islam,” she said.

🇫🇷‼️ @MarionMarechal: “I am waking up at the age of 34 in a European Union which is a digital colony of the United States, an economic colony of China, a demographic colony of Africa, and is becoming a religious and cultural colony of Islam.” pic.twitter.com/7nIrNXpa7M

— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) March 19, 2024

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Authored by Pepe Escobar,

No more shadow play. It’s now in the open. No holds barred…

Exhibit 1: Friday, March 22, 2024. It’s War. The Kremlin, via Peskov, finally admits it, on the record.

The money quote:

“Russia cannot allow the existence on its borders of a state that has a documented intention to use any methods to take Crimea away from it, not to mention the territory of new regions.”

Translation: the Hegemon-constructed Kiev mongrel is doomed, one way or another. The Kremlin signal: “We haven’t even started” starts now.

Exhibit 2: Friday afternoon, a few hours after Peskov. Confirmed by a serious European – not Russian – source. The first counter-signal.

Regular troops from France, Germany and Poland have arrived, by rail and air, to Cherkassy, south of Kiev. A substantial force. No numbers leaked. They are being housed in schools. For all practical purposes, this is a NATO force.

That signals, “Let the games begin”. From a Russian point of view, Mr. Khinzal’s business cards are set to be in great demand.

Exhibit 3: Friday evening. Terror attack on Crocus City, a music venue northwest of Moscow. A heavily trained commando shoots people on sight, point blank, in cold blood, then sets a concert hall on fire. The definitive counter-signal: with the battlefield collapsing, all that’s left is terrorism in Moscow.

And just as terror was striking Moscow, the US and the UK, in southwest Asia, was bombing Sana’a, the Yemeni capital, with at least five strikes.

Some nifty coordination. Yemen has just clinched a strategic deal in Oman with Russia-China for no-hassle navigation in the Red Sea, and is among the top candidates for BRICS+ expansion at the summit in Kazan next October.

Not only the Houthis are spectacularly defeating thalassocracy, they have the Russia-China strategic partnership on their side. Assuring China and Russia that their ships can sail through the Bab-al-Mandeb, Red Sea and Gulf of Aden with no problems is exchanged with total political support from Beijing and Moscow.

The sponsors remain the same

Deep in the night in Moscow, before dawn on Saturday 23. Virtually no one is sleeping. Rumors dance like dervishes on countless screens. Of course nothing has been confirmed – yet. Only the FSB will have answers. A massive investigation is in progress.

The timing of the Crocus massacre is quite intriguing. On a Friday during Ramadan. Real Muslims would not even think about perpetrating a mass murder of unarmed civilians under such a holy occasion. Compare it with the ISIS card being frantically branded by the usual suspects.

Let’s go pop. To quote Talking Heads: “This ain’t no party/ this ain’t no disco/ this ain’t no fooling around”. Oh no; it’s more like an all-American psy op. ISIS are cartoonish mercenaries/goons. Not real Muslims. And everyone knows who finances and weaponizes them.

That leads to the most possible scenario, before the FSB weighs in: ISIS goons imported from the Syria battleground – as it stands, probably Tajiks – trained by CIA and MI6, working on behalf of the Ukrainian SBU. Several witnesses at Crocus referred to “Wahhabis” – as in the commando killers did not look like Slavs.

It was up to Serbia’s Aleksandar Vucic to cut to the chase. He directly connected the “warnings” in early March from American and British embassies directed at their citizens not to visit public places in Moscow with CIA/MI6 intel having inside info about possible terrorism, and not disclosing it to Moscow.

The plot thickens when it is established that Crocus is owned by the Agalarovs: an Azeri-Russian billionaire family, very close friends of…

… Donald Trump.

Talk about a Deep State-pinpointed target.

ISIS spin-off or banderistas – the sponsors remain the same. The clownish secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, Oleksiy Danilov, was dumb enough to virtually, indirectly confirm they did it, saying on Ukrainian TV, “we will give them [Russians] this kind of fun more often.”

But it was up to Sergei Goncharov, a veteran of the elite Russia Alpha anti-terrorism unit, to get closer to unwrapping the enigma: he told Sputnik the most feasible mastermind is Kyrylo Budanov – the chief of the Main Directorate of Intelligence at the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense.

The “spy chief” who happens to be the top CIA asset in Kiev.

It’s got to go till the last Ukrainian

The three exhibits above complement what the head of NATO’s military committee, Rob Bauer, previously told a security forum in Kiev: “You need more than just grenades – you need people to replace the dead and wounded. And this means mobilization.”

Translation: NATO spelling out this is a war until the last Ukrainian.

And the “leadership” in Kiev still does not get it. Former Minister of Infrastructure Omelyan: “If we win, we will pay back with Russian oil, gas, diamonds and fur. If we lose, there will be no talk of money – the West will think about how to survive.”

In parallel, puny “garden-and jungle” Borrell admitted that it would be “difficult” for the EU to find an extra 50 billion euros for Kiev if Washington pulls the plug. The cocaine-fueled sweaty sweatshirt leadership actually believes that Washington is not “helping” in the form of loans, but in the form of free gifts. And the same applies for the EU.

The Theater of the Absurd is unmatchable. The German Liver Sausage Chancellor actually believes that proceeds from stolen Russian assets “do not belong to anyone”, so they can be used to finance extra Kiev weaponizing.

Everyone with a brain knows that using interest from “frozen”, actually stolen Russian assets to weaponize Ukraine is a dead end – unless they steal all of Russia’s assets, roughly $200 billion, mostly parked in Belgium and Switzerland: that would tank the Euro for good, and the whole EU economy for that matter.

Eurocrats better listen to Russian Central Bank major “disrupter” (American terminology) Elvira Nabiullina: The Bank of Russia will take “appropriate measures” if the EU does anything on the “frozen”/stolen Russian assets.

It goes without saying that the three exhibits above completely nullify the “La Cage aux Folles” circus promoted by the puny Petit Roi, now known across his French domains as Macronapoleon.

Virtually the whole planet, including the English-speaking Global North, had already been mocking the “exploits” of his Can Can Moulin Rouge Army.

So French, German and Polish soldiers, as part of NATO, are already in the south of Kiev. The most possible scenario is that they will stay far, far away from the frontlines – although traceable by Mr. Khinzal’s business activities.

Even before this new NATO batch arriving in the south of Kiev, Poland – which happens to serve as prime transit corridor for Kiev’s troops – had confirmed that Western troops are already on the ground.

So this is not about mercenaries anymore. France, by the way, is only 7th in terms of mercenaries on the ground, largely trailing Poland, the US and Georgia, for instance. The Russian Ministry of Defense has all the precise records.

In a nutshell: now war has morphed from Donetsk, Avdeyevka and Belgorod to Moscow. Further on down the road, it may not just stop in Kiev. It may only stop in Lviv. Mr. 87%, enjoying massive national near-unanimity,  now has the mandate to go all the way. Especially after Crocus.

There’s every possibility the terror tactics by Kiev goons will finally drive Russia to return Ukraine to its original 17th century landlocked borders: Black Sea-deprived, and with Poland, Romania, and Hungary reclaiming their former territories.

Remaining Ukrainians will start to ask serious questions about what led them to fight – literally to their death – on behalf of the US Deep State, the military complex and BlackRock.

As it stands, the Highway to Hell meat grinder is bound to reach maximum velocity.

Authored by Stu Cvrk via The Epoch Times,

‘Tis election season, and the political narratives are flying everywhere…

Let us examine the 2024 Democrat political narrative surrounding abortion, including efforts to leverage the 2022 Dobbs decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that has roiled American politics for 50-plus years and counting.

Abortion on Demand as a Political Weapon

On March 14, Vice President Kamala Harris visited a Planned Parenthood clinic in Minnesota, “marking what her office said was the first time a president or vice president has toured a facility that performs abortions,” as reported by the Associated Press. The article correctly points out that this represents an escalation of the “[Democrats’] defense of reproductive rights” political narrative this year.

Buried in that article was a reference to President Joe Biden. The practicing Catholic is cited as using the phrase “right to choose” as opposed to actually using the word “abortion” when discussing the issue on which the U.S. Constitution is silent.

Regardless of the euphemism used, President Biden, Ms. Harris, and other elected Democrats support unlimited abortions, and they apparently mean to ride that narrative all the way to November, because they apparently still believe that the 2024 election will be decided by “pro-choice” suburban women who helped make the difference in 2020.

The Wrong Horse

There are big problems with that political strategy. First of all, a March 12 Rasmussen poll revealed that “economic issues and immigration matter more to voters than abortion.” This should come as no surprise to anyone, because single-issue pro-abortion voters are generally going to vote Democrat anyway.

The problem with the claim of the nonavailability of abortion providers is that the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute reported back in January that the “Number of Abortions in the United States [Is] Likely to Be Higher in 2023 than in 2020.” That means that there were more abortions per annum after the Dobbs decision than when Roe v. Wade was the “law of the land.”

[Note: the abortion numbers from Guttmacher were 930,000 performed in 2020, with 878,000 performed in the first 10 months of 2023, which, when the November and December totals at around 88,000 per month are added, would greatly exceed 2020.]

The Right Horses

Other issues subordinate abortion in Americans’ priorities.

As the Heritage Foundation headlined on March 12, “Biden’s Border Crisis Comes to the Suburbs.” The article noted that “Biden’s immigration-driven crime wave is now arriving in America’s suburbs and small towns with devastating results” while noting that, regardless of the total number, “every single crime committed by an illegal immigrant is totally preventable.”

Illegal immigrant crime victimhood is not an elective action for suburbanites while abortion certainly is —and the polls reflect that uncomfortable fact for Democrats as open borders continues to be an issue of great concern to most Americans.

President Biden suspended the Department of Homeland Security’s enforcement of U.S. immigration laws in January 2021, which initiated the 64 policies recently detailed by U.S. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson that have created the ongoing open border crisis. President Biden could easily reverse all of those policies with the stroke of a pen, yet he refuses to do so by claiming that Congress needs to pass a border bill before he can act.

Another major political issue that is sidestepped by Democrats is inflation as a direct result of “Bidenomics.” A February article by Reason described Bidenomics as a political messaging strategy that included the following facets: “pandemic aid, industrial policy, handouts for labor unions and public workers … [that] could be reduced to a single, overriding response: government spending.”

Trillions of dollars of federal government stimulus spending resulted in a year-over-year inflation rate that peaked at 9.1 percent in June 2022, which was the highest rate experienced in the United States in over 40 years. Inflation remains stubbornly high as the Federal Reserve interest rate manipulations have consistently missed the inflation target of 2 percent because government spending continues unabated.

Zerohedge reported on March 12 that the year-on-year U.S. Consumer Price Index was 3.2 percent, which was more than expected. Zerohedge further noted that “consumer prices have not fallen in a single month” during Biden’s presidency. And Americans feel that pain at the grocery store and elsewhere throughout the Biden economy.

Concluding Thoughts

Political narrative-shifting to abortion and away from the economy, inflation, and the open border would appear to be a losing strategy, but then abortion has been a litmus test for Democrat politicians for years. Most Democrat voters are pro-abortion, and the strategy seems to be more about shoring up the fracturing Democrat base than persuading independents and others to vote Democrat this year.

The problem for Democrats is that they apparently misunderstand the changing voter demographics in 2024. Inflation affects Gen Z and blue-collar workers far more than Democrat consultants and pollsters, who are from a different class than those people and don’t directly experience the adverse effects.

One result, a Harvard CAPS–Harris survey determined that 64 percent of the Gen Z respondents (ages 18-24) approved of Donald Trump’s job as president because the contrast between the Trump and Biden presidencies is clear with respect to the economy and inflation.

Furthermore, The New York Times recently reported the growing shift of Latinos toward Trump. Of even greater concern to Democrats is the rightward shift of black Americans. The Washington Post reported on a February Gallup poll that must have shocked many Democrats. According to the poll, black Americans in 2020 were “66 points more likely to identify as Democrats than Republicans,” but that spread had decreased to only 47 points in 2023.

Key voter demographics are shaping up to be much different in 2024 than those in 2016 and 2020. The Democrats appear to be losing their traditional base of minority and younger generation voters because they don’t seem to have a political narrative that resonates with them on the open border or inflation. And that is a real problem, because the abortion narrative is a lower priority this year.

Authored by T.L.Davis via Substack,

To be blunt, this is what it feels like to be conquered. The British have been through it a couple of times, their kingdoms falling to the Romans, the Vikings, making deals and accepting new cultures that obliterated the former. Societies that survive too long lose themselves in their comfort and become complacent about their replacement. It happened to the Aztecs, the Inca, the Mayans, the Apache, the Comanche and the Sioux, who did it to others before that.

Every single landmass has been invaded and conquered. The Marxists use that as a source of guilt, by calling it “stealing” which it never has been. If the United States had actually been a conqueror, as the Marxists suggest, it would have kept Mexico when it won the war in 1846, instead of just maintaining the landmass that it had before the war, but including the state of Texas after the Republic of Texas voted to join the United States.

If Americans were the evil land “stealers” they are made out to be, they would have invaded and conquered Canada after they beat the British in both the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, leaving out that owned by the French. They would have kept Japan after WWII, much the same as Russia had claimed Alaska. Americans don’t want an empire and never have, not that the US Government hasn’t wanted to extend its influence globally and have made vassal states out of a number of nations along the way. The U.S. could have kept half of Europe and Eastern Europe, if they had thought it would not have put them at odds with Russia and started another war right after WWII, but they did have sole possession of the atom bomb and could have won that war, too. The American people were sick of war and yearned for peace and prosperity.

The difference between all of that and our current situation, is that the United States government is aiding and abetting our own conquest, encouraging it and paying for it with forced taxation and printed funds. I believe there is a legal means of refusing to pay taxes to the federal government, because they have refused to abide by their obligations to maintain borders, ensure the welfare of the people and been woefully negligent in acting in the fiduciary interest of the American people. If we had an actual legal system instead of a corrupt means of punishment, that is.

To get that right, like all of the others, it seems as if we are going to have to demand it at a point of leverage that the American people seem unwilling to employ as yet. This is the break point. We are either going to pay for our own conquest, or we’re going to throw off these criminal masters and engage in either wholesale secession, civil war or a counter-revolution to the bureaucratic dictatorship that has risen up and supplanted representation. Those are the simple choices. Nothing makes this more clear than the recent 1.2 trillion dollar spending bill recently passed, which was done in the face of popular opposition.

The decision to do one or the other, i.e., secession, civil war or counter-revolution will be much easier to make once the internal terrorist attacks start, the forfeiture of property to illegals that put too many aged mothers and fathers in their son’s and daughter’s homes and the rape of daughters and sons become commonplace. I urge the American people not to take it out on those committing the acts, other than in self-defense, but much more so on our own bureaucrats, governors, representatives, senators and presidents. The people who are coming here are doing so out of encouragement by our bureaucracies, congress and president. Not one thing has been done to stop it. Not one. All of the caterwauling about it can now be ignored since in the past year, the congress has allowed the FBI to continue its illegal surveillance on the American people, fought to embolden censorship of our speech, funded the caravans coming from South America and Mexico through the UN, paid to support LGBTQ programs and abortion, funded the lawsuits being waged against Texas to keep the border open.

They are in open hostility toward the American taxpayers, farmers, cattle ranchers, factory owners, automobile manufacturers and oil and gas producers. Not just rhetorical hostility, but regulatory and physical hostility. This is the world we live in; this is the process and methods of conquest to rid the world of the successful and control the low IQ with the brutality they desire to implement on our replacements.

The one thing that has prevented our annihilation thus far is the Second Amendment, but if we are going to sit by and allow them to use every weapon they have to strip that from us as they have every other right listed in the Bill of Rights, then we have no chance of survival and, to be honest, with that ultimate form of leverage in our back pockets, if we still allow our own conquest, we deserve it.

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