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Submitted by Codi Robertson via The Clarion Project,

A newly-leaked German intelligence report states Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar are funding extremist Islamic groups in Germany.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier (R) and his Saudi counterpart Adel al-Jubeir give a joint press conferenceat the Foreign Ministry in Berlin.

The German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and Northern German public radio broadcaster  Norddeutscher Rundfunk saw the brief and raised concern regarding a reported increase in Salafism, an ultra-conservative movement within Sunni Islam, within Germany.  

The report, compiled by German domestic intelligence agency Bft and Federal Intelligence Agency (BND) allegedly accuses Saudi Arabia and the two Gulf nations of funding various Islamic institutions including mosques and religious schools, as well as individual strict preachers and conversion, or “dawah” groups.

The three countries supported missionary groups as a “long-running strategy to exert influence,” according to the report.  More specifically, the report called out  the Saudi Muslim World League, Sheikh Eid Bin Mohammad al-Thani Charitable Association and the Kuwaiti Revival of Islamic Heritage Society (which is banned in both the U.S. and Russia for allegedly supporting al-Qaeda).  

The report found that these organizations have strong ties to the governments of their home countries.  

Neither of the German intelligence agencies have confirmed the accuracy of the leaked report.  There are some who say that say the leak was made intentionally so that Germany would cease controversial arm sales to Saudi Arabia.  

While Germans await official word from the intelligence agencies, Saudi Arabia’s German ambassador, Awwas Alawwad, completely rejected the report, stating that his country has “no connection with German Salafism.”  

Weeks before the leak, German authorities  banned the Islamic missionary group Germany Die Wahre Religion (DWR), or “The True Religion,” after officials found was “bringing jihadi Islamists together across the country under the pretext of preaching Islam.”

Germany, of course, is not new to the threat of Islamic terrorism.  An attack Monday on a Christmas market in Berlin left 12 dead and close to 50 injured. Two two attacks carried out by Islamic State supporters this past July. 

Also, suspicion that Saudi Arabia is funding terrorist organizations is not new.  Especially since the recent disclosures by the Saudis that they had, in fact, funded extremism in the past.

If it is discovered that the Saudis are still funding extremist Islamic groups, it could prove devastating for the West, as Saudi Arabia has been considered one of the few Middle Eastern countries that the West can call an ally.

via http://ift.tt/2i2yi3K Tyler Durden

So what do you do if you’re the Mexican Ambassador to the United States and are faced with a crisis whereby millions of your citizens have broken numerous federal laws of your host country by illegally immigrating without going through the proper channels?  Well, you simply offer up creative new ways to “game the system” to avoid deportation, like submitting an application for citizenship.  While you may have zero chance of actually being granted citizenship, at least you’ll “no longer [be] subject to the deportation processes.”  And, as an added bonus, you won’t “lose Mexican citizenship” either. 

Per The Hill, the ambassador has even expanded the hours of Mexican consulates in the United States to “better provide information and assistance” ahead of Trump taking office on January 20th. 

Ambassador Carlos Sada Solana told Mexican state news agency Notimex Tuesday that applying for citizenship could be an important defense against deportation and other actions if Trump changes U.S. immigration policies.

 

“It’s one of the very important protection actions to become citizens, because then they’re no longer subject to deportation processes and on the other hand, they don’t lose Mexican citizenship,” he told Notimex.

 

Sada said Mexican consulates will expand their service hours to better provide information and assistance to their citizens amid concerns about how citizenship policies may change after Jan. 20.

 

“The best we can do is inform ourselves and be conscious about our situation, and to know that in the consulates we have personnel that is dedicated specifically to the subject of protection,” he said.

 

Of course, to be eligible for citizenship, lawful permanent residents must be over 18, have resided permanently in the country and meet certain personal qualifications, like being of good moral character, having knowledge of U.S. history and speaking English.  We suspect the whole “lawful residency” issue will trip up many of the Ambassador’s applicants.

Sada said the problem was that many immigrants with legal status and eligibility for citizenship choose not to apply. The top reasons he cited were not considering U.S. citizenship important or necessary, plans to leave the U.S., not speaking English and a lack of information about the process.

 

According to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), there are around 2.6 million Mexican lawful permanent residents (LPR) in the United States who are eligible for citizenship, but who haven’t yet applied.

Meanwhile, Solana recently launched a “#Mexico is not the enemy” speaking tour in Arizona…

We were honored to meet with Carlos Manuel Sada Solana, Mexico’s ambassador to the US. “#Mexico is not the enemy.” https://t.co/ZJ3njC1Bug http://pic.twitter.com/n7zI7NdGTc

— Global Chamber® (@GlobalChamber) December 1, 2016

 

…which included an interview with the USA Today in which he vowed, once again, that Mexico would not be paying for a border wall. 

Mexico’s top diplomat to the U.S. says there is no way Mexico will pay for the wall. Not only that, a wall would send a “negative” message that would undermine years of economic and diplomatic cooperation between the two countries that contrary to public perception has benefited both countries.

 

That cross-border relationship includes the creation of more than 100,000 jobs in Arizona.

 

“We have said time and again Mexico is not paying for the wall,” Carlos Manuel Sada Solana, Mexico’s ambassador to the U.S., said Wednesday during a meeting with reporters and editors at The Arizona Republic, azcentral.com and La Voz.

 

“That is something that has been said several times by the president of Mexico, the secretary of foreign affairs, secretary of economy, the secretary of finance,” he continued. “So we are not paying for the wall.”

 

Well, this guy should go over well with the Trump administration.

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Submitted by Nadia Prupis via TheAntiMedia.org,

A Reuters investigation this week uncovered nearly 3,000 different communities across the U.S. with lead levels higher than those found in Flint, Michigan, which has been the center of an ongoing water contamination crisis since 2014.

click image for link to interactive map…

The investigation found that many of the hot-spots are receiving little attention or funding. Local healthcare advocates said they hope the reporting will spur action from influential community leaders.

All of the communities Reuters investigated had lead levels at least two times higher than Flint’s; more than 1,000 were four times higher. In most cases, the local data covered a 5- to 10-year period through 2015, the analysis states.

Areas affected by lead poisoning populate the map from Texas to Pennsylvania, reported Reuters‘ M.B. Pell and Joshua Schneyer. The available data charts 21 states that are home to about 61 percent of the U.S. population.

Despite the massive drop in lead poisoning rates since the 1970s—when heavy metals were phased out of paint and gasoline—many communities throughout the country are still at risk.

“The national mean doesn’t mean anything for a kid who lives in a place where the risks are much higher,” said Dr. Helen Egger, chair of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at NYU Langone Medical Center’s Child Study Center.

Like Flint, many of the communities are mired in “legacy lead,” Reuters reported—old industrial waste, crumbling paint, or corrosive pipes. But few have received help or attention.

Contamination in children can cause cognitive difficulties, which in turn can lead to low school performance, few job opportunities, and trouble with the law. That cycle was examined last year when 25-year-old Baltimore resident Freddie Gray died after his spine was severed in police custody. Amid protests against brutality and racism, many noted that Gray experienced lead poisoning as a child while living in an area with persistently high exposure levels.

But the problem is nationwide and affects a vast spectrum of communities, Reuters writes. Milwaukee, Wisconsin still has “135,000 prewar dwellings with lead paint, and 70,000 with lead water service lines,” and $50 million has already been spent to protect the city’s children. Many families do not have the funds to make the repairs themselves, and laws requiring owners to remove lead from their properties are not consistent state by state.

“Reporters visited several of the trouble spots: a neighborhood with many rundown homes in South Bend, Indiana; a rural mining town in Missouri’s Lead Belt; the economically depressed North Side of Milwaukee,” Pell and Schneyer write. “In each location, it was easy to find people whose lives have been impacted by lead exposure. While poverty remains a potent predictor of lead poisoning, the victims span the American spectrum—poor and rich, rural and urban, black and white.”

In St. Joseph, Missouri, one of the most contaminated neighborhoods included in the study, even a local pediatrician’s children had lead poisoning.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Senate approved a $170 million aid package to repair Flint’s corrosive pipes and fund recovery efforts. But that is 10 times the budget the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) allotted for lead poisoning assistance this year, Reuters notes.

“I hope this data spurs questions from the public to community leaders who can make changes,” epidemiologist Robert Walker, co-chair of the CDC’s Lead Content Work Group, told Reuters. “I would think that it would turn some heads.”

via http://ift.tt/2hUP9px Tyler Durden

If you thought the recent rally was awesome, you haven’t seen anything yet — according to BofA/Merrill analyst Stephen Suttmeier.

Stephen doesn’t concern himself with the fact that the United States and its trading partners are now beguiled by trillions in debt and productivity losses not seen since the early 1980s. Instead, he fashions this to be equal to the golden age of economic prosperity, last enjoyed post world war 2 — stretching until 1971.

WE HAVE FUCKING DECADES OF GAINS AHEAD.

“We actually think the Dow will surpass 20,000 and go much, much higher than that,” said Stephen Suttmeier, his firm’s chief equity technical strategist. “We do believe that we are in a secular bull trend [that was] signaled on the April 2013 breakout in the S&P 500.”

Suttmeier points out that much like today, rising bond yields also corresponded to a surge in equities in the 1950s. By the time bond yields moved to 5 or 6 percent in the 1960s, the S&P 500 had rallied about 460 percent over the decade or so.

“That bull run into the mid-1960s was actually an S&P secular bull trend that was associated with a low and rising interest rate environment,” Suttmeier said. “That is how we’re set up right here. “

In other words, Suttmeier believes that “there is at least a decade or more to run here on the S&P 500 and other U.S. equity averages.”

It’s the same god damned set up as the 1950s and 60s. Rates are going to skyrocket to 6%, choking  out America with crazy debt servicing fees — all the while stocks sparkle like a pack of jumping jacks on a dark and balmy July 4th night.

Here are some GDP stats for your enjoyment.

I want whatever he’s smoking.

 

 

Content originally generated at iBankCoin.com

via http://ift.tt/2ibZq3E The_Real_Fly

On November 1, one week before the presidential election, when a black Baptist church burned down Greenville, Mississippi with the words “Vote Trump” spray painted on the side, CNN was quick to suggest that the arson could be a “hate crime” targeting the local black community.

CNN quoted Mayor Errick Simmons who said said he spoke to some of the church’s 200 congregants “who were fearful and felt intimidated. They felt the vandalism was not just an attack on the church, but on the black community, he said.” It was all the CNN anchors could talk about for hours, if not days.

To be sure, there were those who suggested that contrary to the forced narrative, the arson could be nothing more than a false flag attack meant to incite anger at Trump supporters, but they were quickly silenced by being branded simply as purveyors of “fake news.”

As it turns out, the “fake news” was right, because as AP reported this afternoon, the arsonist Andrew McClinton, 45, of Leland Mississippi has been arrested, and not only was he a member of the church congregation, but he was also African American. 

So much for a “hate crime” against the black community.

Andrew McClinton

McClinton was charged Wednesday with first degree arson of a place of worship, said Warren Strain, spokesman for the Mississippi Department of Public Safety. 

Hopewell Bishop Clarence Green said McClinton is a member of the church. Green said he didn’t know about the arrest until he was called by The Associated Press.

Bishop Clarence Green stands outside his fire damaged 200-member
Hopewell M.B. Baptist Church in Greenville, Miss

Seemingly perturbed by the realization that the fire was started by a member of his own flock, not to mention a black man intent on provoking racial and political tensions under a “false flag”, the Bishop had little to add: “This is the first I have heard of it,” said Green, who said he was attending to other church duties and didn’t have time for a longer interview according to AP.

Amusingly, even as the police investigation continues, a state official said politics did not appear to be the reason for the fire. “We do not believe it was politically motivated. There may have been some efforts to make it appear politically motivated,” Mississippi Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney, who is also the state fire marshal, told AP.

Well, that’s one way to understate it… just like there are now “some efforts” to forget all about the fearmongering, race-baiting narrative that was spun instantly after the arson, in an attempt to demonize the stereotypical “angry, white, republican” Trump supporter, when it was all nothing more than a false flag attack.

Greenville is a Mississippi River port city of about 32,100 people, and about 78% of its residents are African-American. While it’s not unusual for people of different racial backgrounds to work and eat lunch together, local residents say the congregations at most churches remain clearly identifiable by race.

 

Hopewell was founded in 1905 in the heart of an African-American neighborhood, and the congregation now has about 200 members. While some walls of the beige brick church survived the fire, the empty windows are boarded up and church leaders have said the structure will likely be razed. Rebuilding could take months.

After the fire, Hopewell congregants began worshipping in a chapel at predominantly white First Baptist Church of Greenville where they have been warmly accepted. The Hopewell bishop, Clarence Green, said last month the generosity of First Baptist demonstrates that “unlimited love” transcends social barriers. James Nichols, senior pastor at First Baptist, said the Hopewell members are welcome to stay as long as they need a home.

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Submitted by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,

Around the time of Passover in 67 AD, the Jews of Judea were in the midst of a major rebellion against the occupying Roman Empire.

Riots and violence were commonplace, and an organized rebel force of more than 25,000 men fought regularly against the imperial legions.

But a small group of zealots decided that conventional warfare wasn’t good enough.

So they went to the nearby town of Ein Gedi in modern-day Israel and killed 700 civilians.

This was one of the first recorded terror attacks in history.

Titus Flavius Josephus, an ancient historian (whose works are frequently disputed) described this massacre in his book The Jewish War, and goes on to explain that Sicarii committed mass suicide rather than be taken prisoner by the Romans.

Terrorism, radicalism, and fanaticism have existed for thousands of years; there have always been people willing to commit unspeakable acts of violence as a means to achieve their goals.

And sadly, though our species has evolved since ancient times, these traits still exist in a dangerous minority that struck at least three times just yesterday alone.

Most of us who don’t have our mental wires crossed can’t understand their belief systems– both ancient and modern-day terrorists alike are not only willing to die, but quite often HAPPY to die for their causes.

Today’s politicians are remarkably ill-equipped to deal with this kind of threat.

Their solution is to fight violent radicals by forming committees, issuing press releases, and passing mountains of legislation.

Case in point: The National Defense Authorization Act of 2017, which is sitting on President Obama’s desk awaiting signature, consists of over 3,000 pages of rules, regulations, and pet projects.

3,076 pages to be exact.

Hell, when dropped from the right altitude, that’s a lethal weapon.

To give you an example of exactly how these people could possibly fill 3,076 pages, there’s a new rule among the bill’s many, many, many passages that redefines administrative leave procedures for civilian contractors.

FINALLY! We’re safer already!

Just imagine all the terrorists quaking in their boots, petrified of carrying out another act of violence, knowing that American’s administrative leave policy has been refurbished.

Another gem is section 1224, which provides authorization to arm Syrian rebels with state-of-the-art weapons from the US military.

I’m not talking about small arms and ammunition. This is the heavy-duty stuff.

Apparently Congress didn’t learn its lesson when a bunch of the weapons they gave to the Iraqi military conspicuously ended up in the hands of ISIS.

Nor did they learn their lesson back in 2010 when it was found that the DEA had completely lost track of the thousands of weapons they supplied to Mexican cartels.

But don’t worry, the law provides plenty of safeguards.

For example, once the military supplies weapons to a Syrian rebel (who are obviously very easy to tell apart from ISIS terrorists), they have to file a report, including: “an explanation of the purpose and expected employment of such systems.”

Are these people serious?

Do they think that these high-tech precision munitions will be used to make coffee?

It’s amazing that this is what passes as Defense policy… THIS is how they plan on spending hundreds of billions of dollars to keep you safe– sending useless reports to their central bureaucracy.

Then, of course, there’s section 1287, my personal favorite.

Section 1287 requires that, within 180 days of the bill being signed to law, a new agency called the Global Engagement Center will be created under the State Department.

The Global Engagement Center’s job is to combat FAKE NEWS around the world, with sweeping powers to train and fund legions of journalists and bloggers to inundate the world with US propaganda.

Politicians have been praising the idea for the Global Engagement Center as a landmark new tool to keep Americans safe.

This is totally bogus; the US government has had propaganda and psychological warfare resources for decades.

Back in my intelligence days, I spent several months working right next to the Psychological Operations guys.

And outlets like Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty have been in existence since the 1940s; both were funded by the CIA for decades.

So it’s not like it’s anything new for the US to be spreading propaganda.

What is new is creating and consolidating a whole lot of new power and authority into a single office to undermine any independent sources that don’t conform to the official narrative.

The Global Engagement Center is basically the Ministry of Truth.

This doesn’t make you safer. It makes you less free.

Do you have a Plan B?

via http://ift.tt/2hUIhst Tyler Durden

Three weeks ago we reported that in what may have been one of the most brazen thefts in Manhattan's jewelry district, a man brazenly swiped an 86-pound bucket full of gold worth $1.6 million from the back of an unattended Loomis armored truck on West 48th Street in the Diamond District on Sept. 29, in broad daylight, as tourists and locals were walking in and out of the jewelry stores that line the block.

The whole incident was caught on closed-circuit camera.

The suspect, decribed as 5 feet 6 inches tall, 150 pounds and in his 50s according to the police, managed to get away without a hitch. The police suspected that the unidentified man was lying low in Orlando or Miami until things blow over in the Big Apple.

Overnight the police not only identified the man, but according to their latest speculation, the gold thief has moved on from Florida, and is now to be found as far away from NY as possible.

On Tuesday, NYPD identified the man as Julio Nivelo. He is now believed to be in Los Angeles. NYPD Det. Martin Pastor says Nivelo, 53, is a convicted felon who's known to the NYPD as Luis Toledo, among other aliases. He's a career thief who's been arrested seven times and deported four times to his native Ecuador, according to Pastor. 

Nivelo, a native of Ecuador, fled to Orlando, Fla., before heading to California, WNBC reported on Tuesday night. Mr. Nivelo, who was living in West New York, N.J., at the time of the theft, had previously been arrested seven times and deported four times, the station reported.

Surveillance video from the the theft showed Nivelo loitering around the truck before one guard goes to make a pickup, and the other guard heads to the front seat to grab his cellphone. Those 20 seconds were long enough for the thief to strike: he goes to grab the 86-pound bucket – roughly half his weight – and makes a run for it, though he clearly has difficulty maneuvering it. The video shows the thief setting down the heavy bucket, putting it on his shoulder, then taking a breather. He takes another few steps and pauses again. The normally 10-minute walk takes him an hour. He then jumps into a van at 49th Street and Third Avenue.

The police released several photos of Mr. Nivelo. Nivelo was a man about town before the heist, it appears: photos show him posing at Washington Square Park and with a figure of the pope at Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum.

 

Loomis has offered a $100,000 reward for information leading to his arrest and conviction, police sources said.

Below is the NYPD post seeking the public's help in finding Nivelo… and the $1.6 million in gold that is supposedly in his vicinity.

* * *

WANTED: Burglary (Manhattan)

The suspect has been identified as follow:

• Nivelo, Julio
• AKA: David Vargas
• 53 year-old Hispanic male
• 5’5″, 155 pounds with dark hair.

************************************

The New York City Police Department is asking the public’s assistance identifying the individual depicted in the attached surveillance video and photographs in regard to a armored truck burglary that occurred within the confines of the MTN Precinct. Details are as follows:

 It was reported to the NYPD’s Major Case Squad that on Thursday, September 29, 2016, at approximately 4:30 p.m. an armored truck company making a pick up discovered that a 5 gallon aluminum pail weighing 86 pounds containing gold flakes (valued at 1.6 million dollars) was stolen from the rear of their armored truck.  The truck was parked in front of 48 West 48th Street between 5th and 6th Avenues. The unidentified individual is then seen lifting the 5 gallon pail from the truck and fleeing East bound on West 48 Street toward Third Ave. There are no reported injuries as a result of this incident.

The individual is described as a:

•   Male Hispanic 5’6″, 150 lbs, 50-60 years old wearing a black vest, green shirt, blue jeans carrying a black messenger bag.

 Surveillance video and photos of the individual were captured near the corner of 5th Avenue and 48th Street.  The video shows the suspect fleeing with the stolen black aluminum 5 gallon pail.

 Anyone with information in regards to this incident is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 800-577-TIPS or for Spanish 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the Crime Stoppers Website at http://ift.tt/17IHIZe or texting their tips to 274637(CRIMES) then enter TIP577.

 All calls are kept strictly confidential.

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