Antisemitism > Missing Rabbi found murdered in Abu Dhabi

 

Missing Chabad rabbi found murdered

 November 24, 2024

By David Rosenberg, World Israel News

A Chabad rabbi serving as an emissary in Abu Dhabi has been found dead, days after he went missing, the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office and Israeli Foreign Ministry announced in a joint statement Sunday morning.

Rabbi Zvi Kogan, a 28-year-old dual citizen of Israel and Moldova, had been serving as an aide to Rabbi Levi Duchman, chief rabbi of the United Arab Emirates, and operated a kosher supermarket in Abu Dhabi, where he and his wife were residing.

On Thursday, Rabbi Kogan went missing, leading to fears over the weekend that he had been abducted by operatives working on behalf of Iran.

Israel announced Sunday that Rabbi Kogan’s body has been located by UAE authorities, stating that he had been murdered in an “act of antisemitic terrorism.”

“The UAE intelligence and security authorities have located the body of Zvi Kogan, who has been missing since Thursday, 21 November 2024,” the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office and Foreign Ministry said.

“The Israeli mission in Abu Dhabi has been in contact with the family from the start of the event and is continuing to assist it at this difficult time; his family in Israel has also been updated.”

“The murder of Zvi Kogan, of blessed memory, is an abhorrent act of antisemitic terrorism. The State of Israel will use all means and will deal with the criminals responsible for his death to the fullest extent of the law.”

Initial reports indicate Rabbi Kogan was murdered after being abducted by three Uzbeki nationals working on behalf of Iran’s IRGC.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog eulogized Rabbi Kogan in a statement Sunday morning.

“I mourn with sorrow and outrage the murder of Rabbi Zvi Kogan. This vile antisemitic attack is a reminder of the inhumanity of the enemies of the Jewish people.”

“It will not deter us from continuing to grow flourishing communities in the UAE or anywhere – especially with the help of the dedicated commitment and work of the Chabad emissaries all over the world.”

“I thank the UAE authorities for their swift action, and trust they will work tirelessly to bring the perpetrators to justice. Our thoughts and condolences are with Rabbi Kogan’s wife and family. May his memory be a blessing.”

Corruption is Everywhere > MEP Sikorski paid $500,000 by UAE; James Biden Brokered Saudi Deal worth $140m when Joe was Vice Pres

..

Middle Eastern countries are buying up Europe’s politicians? New report shows

Polish MEP Sikorski was paid $500,000 by United Arab Emirates

Liberal MEP Radosław Sikorski faces sharp criticism in Poland after it was revealed he is on the payroll of the United Arab Emirates

February 10, 2023

editor: REMIX NEWS

author: GRZEGORZ ADAMCZYK

The rich Gulf countries have been on a spending spree for years with Europe’s top politicians, and it was not just Qatar that was in on the action. In fact, many nations, such as the United Arab Emirates, are not relying on illicit bribes in suitcases full of cash, but instead are setting up entirely legal foundations and NGOs and then paying out politicians hundreds of thousands of dollars at a time.

Now, a new report from Dutch newspaper NRC details how Poland’s former foreign minister, Radosław Sikorski, who is currently an MEP, has been receiving $100,000 per year from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), totaling $500,000 over the past five years.

He has earned this huge sum of money by being a member of the Advisory Council to the Sir Bani Yas Forum, an exclusive conference that is part of the UAE’s soft power diplomacy and is closed to the media.

In light of the Qatargate bribery scandal, money flowing from oil- and gas-rich Gulf countries into the pockets of EU politicians is being called into question, along with the various benefits and lobbying from a variety of countries within Europe’s institutions.

The ex-foreign minister has also traveled to the UAE at the Middle East state’s expense and has not declared this fact in his financial disclosure to the European Parliament, according to a report from Polsat News.

In his letter to NRC editors posted on Twitter, Sikorski argues that he had no obligation to report that travel, as it was not carried out in an official capacity. He also argued that he never made any secret of the fact that he was paid for being a member of the advisory council within the UAE’s forum and that he has paid his taxes in full on that income. 

Sikorski says that the Sir Bani Yas Forum is a highly respected conference held in the Middle East and that the Advisory Council to the forum includes a former Australian prime minister, an ex-foreign secretary of Britain, and a former deputy of the secretary general of the United Nations.

He also refutes that his activities in the advisory council have in any way influenced the way he has been voting in the European Parliament. He points to the fact that on all matters relating to either the UAE or Saudi Arabia, he has always voted in line with positions taken by the European parliamentary caucus he is a member of, the European People’s Party (EPP). 

The revelations about the MEP’s income have caused a storm in the media and in political circles in Poland. Senior leading Left MP Adrian Zandberg took to Twitter to criticize Sikorski.

“The UAE is an authoritarian state that does not respect freedom of speech and is embroiled in a dirty war in Yemen. Sikorski has in this way closed the door on being in a future government. A Polish minister cannot appear on such a payroll,” posted Zandberg.

Questions have been asked whether Donald Tusk, the leader of the opposition liberal Civic Platform (PO), knew about Sikorski’s involvement with the UAE. Sikorski was a foreign minister in a government led by Tusk and is an MEP elected on a Civic Platform ticket.  

Polish Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro has called for a full explanation of Sikorski’s involvement, especially now that foreign media have published the case. Sikorski has in the past few months also been under attack for some rather unguarded comments.

"Thank You, USA"

Sikorski made international headlines after the Nord Stream pipelines were blown up in a sabotage attack. After the pipelines were blown, Sikorski tweeted “Thank you USA,” implying the U.S. was behind the attack.

During a radio interview, he also claimed that the Polish government had in the early days of the Ukraine war considered taking part in a partition of Ukraine.

Both of these statements were used by the Kremlin regarding claims that the U.S. was responsible for the damage to the Nord Stream pipelines and that Poland was quietly attempting to seize Ukrainian land. 

Sikorski is reported to have been attempting to lobby Donald Tusk for a place on the liberal’s list in the coming Polish parliamentary elections and is rumored to be interested in returning to his former post of foreign minister. Sikorski has also harbored ambitions to be an EU commissioner responsible for foreign policy or of being the head of NATO. He has also on two occasions attempted to become his party’s candidate for president of Poland. 

=============================================================================================

Biden’s brother was hired to broker secret $140M Saudi deal

when Joe was veep, docs reveal

By Emily Crane

February 14, 2023 7:04pm  Updated

Now-first brother James Biden was hired to help a Philadelphia construction company resolve a decades-old dispute with the Saudi government because he was the sibling of then-Vice President Joe Biden, court documents reveal.

The 2017 admission by James Biden, referenced in two affidavits from May 2021, is certain to draw the attention of the GOP-led House Oversight Committee as it investigates the first family’s influence-peddling dating back years.

The affidavit, first obtained by DailyMail.com, was filed in a dispute between the construction company, Hill International, and one of three law firms it hired to help claw back approximately $140 million the Saudis owed for a desalinization plant built by a Hill subsidiary in the 1980s.

That firm, Lankford & Reed, claims that Hill International also hired James Biden, now 73, in 2011 to negotiate a secret deal with the Saudis to settle the dispute – and get out of paying Lankford the 40% cut outlined in their contract.

In July 2017, Thomas Sullivan, a former Treasury Department official-turned-private investigator hired by Lankford, drove to James Biden’s home in suburban Philadelphia to discuss his role with Hill.

President Joe Biden’s brother Jim Biden was allegedly hired to help negotiate a $140 million settlement between

a private US company and the Saudi government because of his ties to his older sibling, a new report said.

NBC Newswire/NBCUniversal via Getty Images

According to Sullivan’s sworn statement, James Biden said he was hired to handle Hill’s “business development” and had been assigned to help with the company’s interests in Saudi Arabia.

The first brother added that he was often tapped to represent Hill in meetings “because, of course, the name didn’t hurt,” Sullivan recalled.

James Biden also told Sullivan he had attended a February 2012 meeting with Saudi officials at which Hill would receive “final payment” for the desalination plant. Biden added that he had attended the meeting “because of his position and relationship” with his older brother, then Barack Obama’s No. 2.

According to the president’s sibling, Hill’s payment for its subsidiary’s work “would be made in both cash and ‘a very large amount'” of future business, Sullivan said.

After the meeting, Sullivan alleged, James Biden’s wife Sara walked him to his car and revealed that her husband and his older brother Joe were very close, and that they told each other everything.”

A private investigator said he spoke to Jim and Sara Biden at their Pennsylvania home in July 2017 about the Saudi deal.

AP

Sara Biden also told Sullivan that “he doesn’t like us talking to people,” the ex-Treasury man recalled.

“I didn’t ask for a further explanation,” Sullivan said, “since I was looking at two large men in dark suits, in a big black sedan parked on a side street looking directly into their house down the walkway I had just exited. I thought they were some type of security, probably Secret Service.”

In a separate affidavit, Lankford & Reed partner Thomas Lankford alleged that his firm and the Saudis had tentatively agreed on a settlement of Hill’s claims worth around $100 million by November 2011. However, after James Biden’s February 2012 meeting with Saudi officials in Riyadh, Hill initially “went dark” — then claimed that the Saudis had backed off on the settlement.

According to Lankford, Hill International CEO Irvin Richter had told him that he had retained James Biden because the Saudis “would not dare stiff the brother of the Vice-President who would be instrumental to the deal.”

Lankford’s affidavit does not elaborate on why Richter believed Joe Biden would be “instrumental” to any settlement.

After James Biden’s February 2012 meeting, Lankford said, Richter “seemed indifferent” to the ongoing dispute and communicated with the law firms “only infrequently.”

In addition, Lankford claimed, US government officials, “who had previously been helpful, became guarded and emphasized that Hill was doing lots of business in Saudi Arabia.”

At some point after 2014, when Lankford said Richter declined his offer to sue the Saudis to settle the debt, James Biden revealed that Hill and Riyadh “had secretly agreed to settle … through the award of future contracts.”

According to Lankford, James Biden “also stated that the settlement may have involved a cash payment to Richter.”

Congressman James Comer had asked Treasury for information about any transactions flagged as suspicious

involving James Biden’s activities in the Middle East.

Rod Lamkey – CNP/Sipa USA

As of May 2021, Lankford claimed, Hill International and its affiliates had been awarded $358 million from the Saudis in construction management contracts since February 2011 after doing “virtually no business” with Riyadh prior.

It is unclear from the affidavits how much James Biden was paid for his work on Hill’s behalf.

A rep for the first brother denied that any negotiations took place.

“This entire story is yet another attempt to smear Jim Biden,” the rep said in a statement to The Post. “Mr. Biden never negotiated with the Saudi Government on behalf of Hill or any other entity.”

President Biden has long denied having any knowledge of his family’s foreign business deals – including those involving James and first son Hunter Biden.

James and Hunter were previously linked to a planned multimillion-dollar deal with Chinese state-backed energy conglomerate CEFC, which is currently being probed by federal investigators.

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) asked the Treasury Department in July of last year for information about transactions flagged as suspicious that involve the first brother’s activities in the Middle East, specifically in Saudi Arabia and Qatar “where James Biden acquired relationships over the course of Joe Biden’s time in elected office.”

“Evidence continues to mount that the Biden family used Joe Biden’s name to secure deals around the world to enrich themselves,” Comer told The Post Tuesday. “The Treasury Department must provide the suspicious activity reports generated for the Biden family and their associates to inform our investigation about the Biden family’s business schemes and Joe Biden’s involvement. If Joe Biden is compromised by his family’s deals, this is a national security threat.”

=============================================================================================

Bits and Bites from Around the World > Beetles cause town to go dark; American bugs invade Sochi; Pregnant, single Journo welcomed by Taliban, but not NZ;

..
Town goes dark amid massive bug infestation

Unusual rains and heat saw beetles reproducing in larger numbers

and invading a small town in Argentina

FILE PHOTO: A town during a blackout. © AFP / Yuri Cortez

The Argentinean town of Santa Isabel has been forced to shut off its lights for several days in an effort to persuade the millions of bugs that have invaded its streets to leave and look for another place to stay.

The town of some 2,500 in Argentina’s central province of La Pampa has been plagued by swarms of beetles for over a week. “They’re everywhere – in the houses, in the shops,” Deputy Mayor Cristian Echegaray complained to the media.

Local law enforcement agents have blamed the beetles for damaging the police station, residential buildings, and vehicles, as well as plugging the drains at a gas station, among other inconveniences.

Residents have documented the infestation in videos uploaded to social media, showing thousands of bugs in the roofs of their houses and huddling in dark holes.

Some have been filling huge boxes with the insects, driving them out of town in their cars, and dumping them, so as to be able to go on with their daily routine without the insects’ hindrance.

The authorities attribute the infestation both to unusually heavy rains for the time of the year and the heatwave that recently hit Argentina, which saw temperatures rise to almost 40C (104F).

Those conditions were perfect for the reproduction of the bugs, the larvae of which develop below ground.

Millions of adult beetles then flocked to Santa Isabel, attracted by its streetlights. The insects don’t bite or sting, but they’re protected by a sturdy shell and have a tendency to hit things as they fly, so locals were recommended to cover their faces while outside to avoid injury.

Santa Isabel eventually decided to turn off its streetlights and the lights in public building to make the bugs “go away and find another town,” Echegaray told the AP news agency on Saturday.

The town has been dark for the past three days, with the move proving effective. The number of beetles has decreased dramatically during the blackout, he said.

When you think of American bugs in Russia, it's usually listening devices that come to mind.

Call the ‘Men in Black’! Huge cockroaches invade

Russian resort of Sochi

Note: dated story - 30 Jul, 2019

They sowed fear in moviegoers after being seen bolstering an alien invasion in ‘Men in Black’ and now American cockroaches have been spotted in the Russian resort of Sochi. Scientists warn they won’t be going away.

Actor Will Smith on the Men in Black II movie poster. © AFP / Yoshikazu Tsuno;

American cockroach. © AFP / Sam Yeh

With their body length reaching up to 5cm and a full length of 9cm with whiskers, the American incarnation of the bugs are considered the largest common cockroaches on Earth. They have wings and are very skilled at flying, something their Russian counterparts never do.

Is this an example of American exceptionalism?

The insects are dangerous pests; they spread diseases, cause allergic reactions in humans and damage not only food supplies but also the buildings that they infest.

These are the new neighbors that residents of Sochi, the famous resort on the Black Sea will have to get used to from now on. Numerous red-brownish bugs have been spotted in homes and green areas of the 2014 Olympic capital, scientists from Sochi National Park said.

American cockroach (Periplaneta americana) © Sochi National Park (9cm = about 3.5in)

As for how an invasion by an alien species occurred, they explained that “the American cockroaches are often held in terrariums as an exotic large insect and also used as a food for terrarium animals: lizards and certain species of snakes.” The scientists believe that roaches simply escaped from their terrariums to start populating Sochi.

The species, which got its name after being transferred to America on trade and slave ships in the 17th century, originates from tropical Africa. So, the conditions in Sochi are perfect for it. The Russian resort has a humid, subtropical climate, with the thermometers reaching plus 30 Celsius in summer and annual average temperature of plus 18.4 Celsius. American tourists, who visit the resort often, refer to it as “Russian Miami.”

Despite its being new in Sochi, the adaptive American cockroach has spread across the globe in areas with tropical climates. It’s often encountered in Southern Europe, the Middle East and Asia, with the nickname of a “little hard-to-kill pest” given to the insect in China.

The Asians have even learned to derive benefit from the pests. The roaches are an important ingredient in Chinese medicine, with one pharmaceutical company operating a farm that breeds around six billion of them every year. Restaurants in China, Vietnam and other countries also serve their customers a range of dishes that offer American cockroach as a protein.

In the 1997 sci-fi comedy hit ‘Men in Black,’ the American cockroaches were allies with an extraterrestrial bug, who landed on Earth to capture the powerful device called the Galaxy. But it was his soft spot for the local insects that eventually allowed Agents K and J to defeat the alien and foil his plans.

The residents of Sochi are unlikely to be using the roaches to diversify their diet, but they are, of course, no strangers to exotic insects. Sochi National Park had recently shared pictures of rare sawyers, which were made on its territory. Those bugs are also considered pests due to feeding on trees or wooden structures, but some of them look absolutely beautiful.

Established in 1983, the Sochi National Park is the second oldest in Russia. It covers a vast area of 1,937 sq km, starting from the Black Sea shore and going all the way up to the Caucasus Mountains. The reserve hosts a variety of rare plants and animals, with the Persian Leopard reintroduced there in 2009.

Pregnant foreign reporter asks Taliban for refuge after

being rejected by home country

One has to be in a truly “messed up” situation to seek an offer of safe haven

from the Taliban, a New Zealand journalist pointed out

The Taliban fighters in Afghanistan’s Maymana. © AFP / Elise Blanchard

A New Zealand reporter, who ended up pregnant and unmarried while working in Qatar for broadcaster Al Jazeera, has revealed that she had to turn to the Taliban for help after her own country said she couldn’t return due to Covid-19 curbs.

Charlotte Bellis had previously become famous when she attended the Taliban’s first press conference after the radical group took power in Afghanistan last August and asked its leaders: “What will you do to protect the rights of women and girls?”

Now, she’s making headlines again after finding herself in an unexpected conundrum, which the reporter detailed in a bombshell opinion piece for the New Zealand Herald on Friday.

In September, when Bellis returned from Afghanistan to Qatar’s capital Doha, where Al Jazeera is based, she found out that she was pregnant from her partner Jim Huylebroek, a photographer who contributes to the New York Times and who had also been in Kabul.

It was a huge surprise as doctors had always been saying that she was incapable of having kids, but it also meant that the reporter couldn’t stay in Qatar anymore, as being pregnant and unmarried was illegal under that Muslim country’s laws.

Bellis resigned from Al Jazeera, hoping to give birth sometime in May in New Zealand, which shut itself from the outside world during the pandemic but planned to reopen its borders for residents in February.

The duo went to Belgium –Huylebroek’s home country– to wait until regular flights to New Zealand became available. The reporter knew her nationality meant she couldn’t stay in the EU for too long, so she’d also been trying to win a spot in a Managed Isolation and Quarantine (MIQ) facility in New Zealand, but with no luck. 

And when the reopening of the borders was delayed by the authorities in Wellington due to the emergence of the Omicron variant, Bellis was left with just one destination she could travel to – Kabul. Both she and Huylebroek and still had visas that allowed them to live in Afghanistan.  

The reporter said she organized a meeting with senior Taliban contacts, asking them if there’ll be “a problem” if she comes to the Afghan capital with her partner, considering the fact that she’s pregnant and that they weren’t a married couple.

“No, we’re happy for you, you can come and you won’t have a problem,” a Taliban official responded, according to Bellis. “Just tell people you’re married and if it escalates, call us. Don’t worry. Everything will be fine.”

“When the Taliban offers you – a pregnant, unmarried woman – safe haven, you know your situation is messed up,” she wrote.

The reporter is currently in Kabul, but she doesn’t want to actually give birth in Afghanistan due to the turbulent situation and poor state of healthcare in the country.

With the UN expecting an extra 50,000 Afghan women to die in childbirth by 2025, “getting pregnant can be a death sentence” there, she pointed out.

But those arguments didn't seem too convincing to the authorities in New Zealand, who rejected Bellis’ emergency MIQ spot application on Monday. Among other things, the pregnant woman was told that she “did not provide any evidence” of having a scheduled “time-critical” medical treatment in New Zealand and that she couldn’t access the same treatment in her “current location.”

Someone got up on the wrong side of the bed, I think.

The reporter confessed that she was “in shock” after getting such a response. She started contacting lawyers and some other important people in New Zealand to make it clear that she was going to fight back against the ruling – by appealing and taking it to the media.

But, on Wednesday, the status of her application on the MIQ website switched from “deactivated” to “in progress.” The next day, her partner received an email, saying that he could now also apply for an emergency MIQ spot.

According to Bellis, the turnaround occurred after New Zealand’s Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins was informed of their case. And she wasn’t happy to be “getting preferential treatment” from the government, which only wants to avoid “an incoming political headache.”

“They rejected us, like they have so many thousands of other desperate New Zealanders, and seemingly because of who we are, and the resources we have,” she argued.

The reporter said she decided to share her troubles because “the decision of who should get an emergency MIQ spot is not made on a level playing field, lacks ethical reasoning and pits our most vulnerable against each other.”

She called for the system to be changed, adding that it was time for the authorities in New Zealand, not the Taliban, to answer what would they do to protect the rights of women.

Hipkins later confirmed to The NZ Herald that he was told about the reporter's situation by “a senior National Party MP” and ordered to check “whether the proper process was followed” regarding her emergency MIQ application.

I'm not sure how clever this story is - outing the Taliban for telling her to lie about being married, outing possible special consideration by New Zealand. If both of these entities react negatively to the publicity, where will Charlotte go then? 

Corruption is Everywhere > An Obama advisor; Clinton's 2016 Campaign; 47 Steel Execs jailed in China

..

Obama adviser pleads guilty to stealing $200,000+

A former White House official was accused of stealing tens of thousands of dollars

to secure a loan on a multi-million-dollar apartment

White House © Getty Images / E4C

Seth Andrew, a former adviser to 44th President Barack Obama, has pleaded guilty to wire fraud charges after stealing $218,000 from a charter school he founded.

The US Department of Justice announced on Friday that Andrew had pleaded guilty to transferring the money from the school to his own private bank accounts, which were being used to acquire a mortgage for a multi-million-dollar New York apartment.

Andrew could face up to 20 years in prison for the crime and is set to be sentenced on April 14. The former White House education adviser has agreed “to pay restitution to the Charter School Network from which he stole,” according to the DOJ.

“Seth Andrew, a former White House adviser, admitted today to devising a scheme to steal from the very same schools he helped create,” said US Attorney Damian Williams in a statement. “Andrew now faces time in federal prison for abusing his position and robbing those he promised to help.”

Andrew – who served as an education adviser to the Obama White House between 2014 and 2016 – was arrested in April 2021 and charged with wire fraud, money laundering, and making false statements.

At the time, FBI Assistant Director William F. Sweeney Jr. accused Andrew of stealing the school’s money to get “the lowest interest rate” while applying for the Manhattan apartment loan.

“When you don’t have the necessary funds to put down, and you steal the money from your former employer to make up the difference, saving money in interest is likely to be the least of your concerns,” said Sweeney, who added, “We allege today that Andrew did just that, and since the employer he stole from was a charter school organization, the money he took belonged to an institution serving school-aged children.”

Disgraced lobbyist reportedly pleads guilty

in 2016 election meddling case

George Nader funneled millions of UAE money to “Our Sister” Hillary Clinton

FILE PHOTO. George Nader speaking at a Middle East Insight event in Washington, DC

on March 18, 1999. ©Ron Sachs / CNP / AdMedia via Global Look Press

An adviser to the government of the United Arab Emirates has admitted guilt in illegal donations of millions of dollars to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, The Intercept has learned.

Several months ago, George Nader agreed to plead guilty on one count of defrauding the US government through concealing the foreign origins of political contributions, the outlet reported, citing a sentencing memo penned by prosecutors. The document was unsealed in December 2021, but was not previously reported, the outlet said.

According to the allegations, Nader and his co-conspirator, Ahmad Khawaja, a California businessman, obfuscated the source of nearly $5 million. Transfers from Nader’s UAE-based firm to Khawaja’s US-based payment-processing company were presented to be regular payments.

Of that amount, more than $3.5 million came from the UAE government and were donated to Democratic PACs supporting Clinton’s candidacy, the allegations said. It remains unclear what happened to the rest of the money. However, the memo states that the two defendants sought inroads to “key figures” in the Donald Trump campaign, and that Khawaja donated $1 million to the Republican candidate’s inaugural committee.

Eight people have been indicted in the case, with five of them, including Nader, pleading guilty, The Intercept said. Khawaja fled the US after being indicted and is reportedly being held in custody in Lithuania. Both primary defendants are American citizens of Lebanese origin.

The accusations were previously detailed by the New York Times. Clinton was referred to as “Our Sister” or “the Big Lady” in communications between Nader and his UAE client, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed. The businessman was a trusted emissary of the UAE royalty and provided regular updates on his progress in establishing connections with the Democratic candidate’s staff. The UAE government refrained from commenting on the allegations to either publication.

Nader was previously investigated by special counsel Robert Mueller for his effort targeting the Trump campaign and presidency. Mueller’s team questioned him about a meeting he helped organize between Erik Prince, an American private security entrepreneur and founder of the infamous company Blackwater, and Kirill Dmitriev, the head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, the country’s sovereign wealth fund.

The January 2017 Seychelles encounter was hyped by US media as evidence of Trump-Russia collusion, but Mueller’s final report described it as pretty much inconsequential and of little interest to the people in Trump’s orbit.

Nader was arrested by US federal agents in June 2019, after he got off a flight from the UAE, for possession of child pornography and images of bestiality, which were reportedly discovered by the Mueller team. It was the latest of several charges of the same nature he faced in the US.

The businessman was later indicted, with more counts of possession of child pornography and the sex trafficking of a 14-year-old boy from the Czech Republic, which happened in 2000. He pleaded guilty to both felonies and was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Nader spent a year in a Czech prison for having sex with the same minor, who he flew to the US.

Prosecutors in the campaign finance violation case are asking for a five-year sentence for the businessman, who is now 62 years old, to be served after his current prison term.

It seems like Mueller found a lot more dirt on Clinton than he ever did on Trump!

Are there charges pending against the Democratic PAC for receiving money from UAE?

========================================================================================

Nearly 50 steel execs jailed over emissions

Beijing has punished nearly 50 executives of steel-producing companies

for faking pollution data

FILE PHOTO. A steel worker walks past steel rods at a plant in Tangshan, Hebei province, China.

©  Kevin Frayer

Authorities in China have punished supervisors from four companies located in the top steelmaking city of Tangshan, the local government announced on Thursday, citing court documents.

Some 47 senior officials working for the companies have been given prison sentences ranging from six to 18 months after they were found guilty of tampering with monitoring devices controlling emissions.

The interference allowed the companies to release large quantities of pollutants back in March 2021, according to the Tangshan municipal government’s statement. Two of the companies caught circumventing the emissions restrictions, Tangshan Songting and Hebei Xinda, were also fined four million yuan to seven million yuan ($628,000 to $1.1 million).

The sentences and heavy fines come amid Beijing’s campaign to make its economy more eco-friendly and achieve carbon goals outlined by the central government. Steel producers appear to be among the prime offenders, repeatedly caught flouting the emissions caps.

Last year, four Tangshan steel making companies were caught failing to comply with production cuts introduced to limit heavy pollution. One of the offending companies, Tangshan Jinma Steel Group, was also involved in the latest scandal.

Islam - Current Day - Terrorism Plots - Some Thwarted; Some Not

..

French counter-terrorism chief says TWO Islamist plots were thwarted in 2020,

though FIVE attacks weren’t prevented

4 Jan 2021 11:23

A makeshift memorial to Samuel Paty in Nice, France, October 21, 2020. © Eric Gaillard / Reuters

Authorities foiled two Islamist plots last year, France's top counter-terrorism official has said. The country suffered five high-profile terrorist attacks in 2020, including the murder of Samuel Paty and the stabbing in Nice.

“Two Sunni Islamist terrorist attacks were thwarted in 2020,” National Coordinator for Intelligence and Counter-Terrorism Laurent Nunez told Europe 1 radio station, adding that 33 Islamist terrorist plots had been foiled in France since 2017.

This suggests the number of prevented attacks in 2020 was smaller than the number of terrorist attacks that had occurred.

On April 4, a knifeman killed two people and wounded five in Romans-sur-Isere in the southeastern part of the country. A few weeks later, a terrorist rammed his vehicle into police officers outside Paris, injuring three. Both incidents took place in the middle of a nationwide lockdown against Covid-19.

In September, a man stabbed two people outside the former Paris office of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, which had published cartoons of Prophet Mohammed. On October 16, a terrorist of Chechen origin beheaded teacher Samuel Paty for having shown his class a cartoon of Mohammed during a lesson on freedom of speech. Several weeks later, three people were killed in a stabbing attack inside a Catholic church in Nice.

These attacks prompted the government to crack down on mosques and Muslim NGOs suspected of promoting radical views. Nunez said Islamist terrorism remains a “priority threat” that is growing “increasingly difficult to detect.” He explained that the attacks coming from abroad are “less likely” because Islamic State has become “very weak” in the Middle East.

“But we stay extremely vigilant. Islamic State is reorganizing itself to act in a clandestine manner.”

Nunez said five attacks by far-right groups were thwarted since 2017, and he is concerned about the “rise of [white] supremacists and survivalists.”

Last month, France’s Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin thanked police for busting a cell of “violent ultra-left activists” who were suspected of planning terrorist actions. 

Anti-Muslim Polish duo plotted to ‘BOMB MOSQUE’ and ‘POISON’ people after writing Breivik-like manifesto against Islam

4 Jan 2021 17:03

FILE PHOTO © Reuters / Kacper Pempel

State prosecutors in Poland charged two men with conspiring to attack a mosque with explosives. The suspects are also accused of planning poisonings, while one wrote a manifesto on the need to “exterminate religious groups.”

The two men were arrested in November 2019, the day before a large nationalist march in Warsaw. Police seized guns, drugs, explosives and chemicals, and an investigation began. At the time of their arrest, the men were already under investigation for alleged involvement in a 2012 plot by a Polish academic – dubbed “Poland’s Breivik” after Norwegian far-right terrorist Anders Behring Breivik – to blow up parliament buildings.

State prosecutors charged the men on Monday with preparing explosives that they say “threatened the life and health of many people.” A government spokesman told Onet that the men targeted “a specific religious object of the Islamic community,” believed to be a mosque.

The spokesman added that the conspirators also planned to “spread poisonous substances to certain people,” in a campaign aimed at preventing the “Islamization” of Poland. A third man is also charged with possessing chemical precursors to explosives.

Like Breivik in Norway and mosque shooter Brenton Tarrant in New Zealand, one of the would-be attackers prepared a manifesto that prosecutors say “incited hatred on the basis of ethnic and religious differences.”

The two bomb plotters face up to 10 years in prison if convicted, while the third man faces two years behind bars for possessing illegal chemicals.

Poland is a staunchly Catholic country, where Muslims make up around 0.1 percent of the population. Warsaw’s two mosques have both been targeted by vandals in recent years, with windows smashed in one mosque and cultural center in 2017. 

A Pew Research poll last year found that two-thirds of Poles have an unfavorable view of Muslims in their country, and the country’s ruling Law and Justice party has refused to take in significant numbers of Muslim migrants, with then-interior minister Mariusz Blaszcak comparing his party’s position in 2017 to that of “Charles the Hammer who stopped the Muslim invasion of Europe in the 8th century.”

UAE nabs Iranian terror squad plotting to attack Israelis

 January 4, 2021

 

Dubai International Airport (Shutterstock)

 

Israelis have been warned about visiting Dubai. The discovery of Iranian terror squad underscores the danger.

By David Isaac, World Israel News

An Iranian terror squad was broken up by UAE intelligence in the capital of Abu Dhabi and its most populous city, Dubai, media reports.

Israelis have visited the UAE in the thousands since the signing of the Abraham Accords on the White House Lawn on Sept. 15, 2020. From Iran’s point-of-view, they make a soft target and one easily reached.

 

Tensions have been particularly high in recent weeks as Israel went on high alert due to the approaching anniversary of the killing of Islamic Revolutionary Guards Commander, Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was assassinated by a U.S. drone strike on Jan. 3, 2020. Iran has repeatedly vowed revenge against both the U.S. and Israel, although the latter has not taken credit for being involved in the attack.

Israel’s National Security Council had also warned in late November of security threats to Israeli tourists in Dubai. But Israelis have largely ignored the warnings.

Dubai has been a prime location for carrying out kidnappings.

In 2000, a reserve colonel in the IDF, Elhanan Tannenbaum, was kidnapped in Dubai and held for more than three years by Hezbollah in Lebanon. Although Tannenbaum was a shady character who had gone to Dubai to complete a drug deal, the IDF decided to do what it could to get him back given that he was privy to IDF information as part of his reserve service. He was returned as part of a prisoner swap in Jan. 2004.

 

In July 2020, Iran kidnapped a California man for being part of an Iranian dissident group. Jamshid Sharmahd was staying in Dubai.

“We’re seeking support from any democratic country, any free country,” his son Shayan Sharmahd told the AP. “It is a violation of human rights. You can’t just pick someone up in a third country and drag them into your country.”

Even the man portrayed in the 2004 film “Hotel Rwanda,” Paul Rusesabagina, was seized in Dubai in Sept. 2020. It appears he was nabbed on an arrest warrant by the Rwandan government. His daughter described it as a kidnapping.

Love, Marriage & Divorce in 15 Minutes in the Gulf States

Groom divorces bride 15 minutes into marriage

Gulf News
Bassam Za'za', Legal and Court Correspondent

Dubai: The marriage between a couple lasted less than 15 minutes following a misunderstanding between the groom and his father-in-law, who was in a rush to collect his daughter’s bride price.

The newly-married man divorced his wife within 15 minutes after signing the marriage contract after he felt demeaned by his father-in-law who did not want to wait for him to bring part of the agreed-upon money from his parked car.

The man was believed to have an agreement with the bride’s father to pay Dh100,000 (about $27,000 USD) for the marriage and mention the amount in the contract, an Arabic news report said on Tuesday.

According to the father-husband agreement, the man was supposed to pay Dh50,000 at the time of signing the contract inside the Sharia judge’s office and the remaining amount upon leaving the court building.

Family members and friends accompanied the bride and the groom to the Sharia judge’s office to witness the signing of the marriage contract.

The groom paid the bride’s father Dh50,000 in the judge’s office at the time of signing, according to the news report, and as the bride, groom and attendees walked out, the bride’s father asked his son-in-law to pay the rest.

The groom asked his father-in-law to wait for a few minutes and assured him that the other Dh50,000 was in his car.

The woman’s father insisted the groom pay up immediately, even though the groom told him that he would get the money within five minutes after leaving the court building.

The father-in-law then told the man to send a relative or friend to get the money, a lawyer who is handling the case confirmed to Gulf News on Tuesday.

The lawyer, who wished not to be named, added, “The groom felt insulted and demeaned by his father-in-law. He told the bride’s father that he did not want his daughter as his wife and divorced her in less than 15 minutes from signing the marriage contract.”

I wonder if that was the real story? I wonder if the bride's father suspected that the groom would run off with the bride without paying the remaining Dh50,000? In fact, I would bet money that such was the case which just goes to show you what kind of man the father was selling his daughter to. I presume the father kept the first Dh50,000. 

Bags Containing $9.6M in Cash Spark Standoff at Somalia Airport

Corruption is Everywhere - UAE, Somalia

By Sommer Brokaw  

Somalia's security officials seized nearly $10 million over the weekend that arrived at Aden Abdulle Airport

in Mogadishu, Somalia. File Photo Dai Kurokawa/EPA-EFE

UPI -- Authorities have started an investigation into bags containing nearly $10 million that arrived on a plane at a Somali airport over the weekend.

Somalia security officials found the money in three unmarked bags on a Royal Jet plane at the airport in Mogadishu, Somalia's interior ministry said.

Royal Jet is a luxury airline based in the United Arab Emirates.

"The seized money is worth $9.6 million," the minister said. "Security agencies are currently investigating where the money came from, where it was going, the individuals involved and the reason for bringing money worth this amount into the country."

Senior security officials told Voice of America the three money bags have been placed in Somalia's central bank for storage.

Officials said the money was seized after diplomat Mohammed Ahmed Othman Al Hammadi's entourage tried to take it out of the airport, but security instructed them to have them scanned.

"The ambassador refused, walked back to the plane with three bags, and counterterrorism units confiscated the three bags," one officer said.

Al Hammadi told VOA the money was not intended for the UAE embassy, but rather the ministry of defense.

"It's for the salary of the Somali soldiers," he said.

Which Somali soldiers, is the question?

The seizure resulted in a standoff for hours between airport officials and UAE embassy staff.

Somalia and UAE relations have been tense since last June when Somalia decided to remain neutral in Persian Gulf political matters.

‘You Can’t Let Anyone Preach’: Germany Needs to ‘Control’ Mosques to Fight Terrorism - UAE Minister

This seems pretty intuitive to most of us, however, the German government

just doesn't seem to understand

© Odd Andersen / AFP

A loose oversight over mosques is what contributes to the rise of Islamist terrorism in Europe, an UAE minister warned. He then called on Germany and its neighbors to introduce stricter regulation over Muslim prayer halls to prevent radicalization.

“You can’t just leave a mosque open and allow anyone to go there and to preach. You need to have licences,” Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak Al-Nahyan, the minister for tolerance of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), told Germany’s DPA news agency as he commented on the security situation in Europe. He added that the governmental non-involvement into the activities of religious communities is what has led to the rapid rise of extremism.

Muslims in Germany as well as in the neighboring France, Belgium and the UK had been radicalized exactly due to the fact that authorities in these countries did not pay enough attention to what happened in the mosques on their territory, the minister argued. “Germany and other European states must eventually exert stricter control over such meeting places of Islamists,” he said.

The minister said that the European countries apparently had “good intentions” when they allowed Muslim migrant communities manage their religious issues, including the establishment of mosques and choice of imams, independently. Still, he criticized such approach as ultimately false and dangerous.

All European mosques should be placed under state surveillance

Europe must understand that only people who underwent sufficient training, have a profound knowledge of Islam and possess a license, can become imams, Al-Nahyan said, adding all European mosques should be placed under state surveillance. Explaining the idea, brought the example of his own country, where also prayer halls are controlled by the state authorities.

In the UAE, the state exercises “comprehensive” control over mosques while security services have broad powers allowing them to stop radicalization and prevent any terrorist attacks. The minister told dpa that his country repeatedly offered its assistance and experience in the field of managing religious institutions to the European countries but found little enthusiasm on their part.

“We believe that something [similar] should be done in Europe,” Al-Nahyan told dpa. According to the German media, authorities play no role in the appointment of imams. A person also does not need any approval from the state to establish a mosque.

In the meantime, Islamism has long been a source of concern for the German security services. In February 2017, the German domestic security service, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), warned that Islamist extremists were advancing “with impunity” in rural areas of eastern Germany even before the 2015 refugee crisis.

Around the same time, the head of the domestic intelligence service in the German region of Saxony said that Muslim Brotherhood – a Sunni fundamentalist organization – is actively investing into real estate and are trying to “monopolize” mosques in the region to increase its influence. The German media reported in February that about 1,000 members of the Muslim Brotherhood were active in Germany at that time.

In a separate development, in February, it was reported that the German authorities closed down the mosque that was attended by Anis Amri, a 24-year-old Tunisian, who carried out the deadliest terrorist attack in Germany’s recent history.

In December 2016, Amri drove a truck into a Christmas market in Berlin, killing 12 people and injured dozens more in a deliberate attack claimed by Islamic State. Even though the mosque he frequented was under surveillance since at least 2015, it was closed only two months after the attack.

However, all these facts apparently did not persuade the German government that it should change its policy towards mosques, as in April 2017 it dismissed an idea of introducing surveillance over the Muslim prayer halls. The government dismissed the so-called “Islam law” as a “populist crackpot idea.”

The “Islam law” initiative was proposed by Chancellor Angela Merkel’s own party, the Christian Democratic Union, and involved introducing a Muslim registry, language tests for imams and a monitoring system for mosques. Merkel’s spokesman, Steffen Seibert, rejected the idea by saying that “such a law is not now an issue for government business,” adding that freedom of religion “one of the central freedoms safeguarded by our constitution.”

Even when that religion is hell-bent on destroying the very country and civilization in which it resides!!!

And you wonder why Nazism and white supremacy is raising its ugly head. It's because you, the government, are enabling the very destruction of your own society. Is there anything more you can do to assist the cause of jihad in Germany?

Jail Bankers Who Caused 2008 Financial Crisis, says ex-PM Gordon Brown

Gordon Brown has launched a scathing attack on bankers over the 2008 financial crisis

© Neil Hall / Reuters

Millionaire bankers responsible for the 2008 financial crisis should be stripped of their bonuses and sent to prison, former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said. He warned bankers have not learnt a thing and are still playing fast and loose.

The former Labour leader, who was Tony Blair’s chancellor before replacing him as PM in 2007, has torn into wealthy bankers and revealed he was preparing to quit Downing Street when the banking crisis was at its height.

The ex-PM, toppled in 2010 when David Cameron formed a Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition, had called for tougher regulations at a special G20 summit in London. None have been implemented, however.

In an autobiography released next week – entitled My Life, Our Times – Brown says history will repeat itself if action is not taken.

“If bankers who act fraudulently are not put in jail with their bonuses returned, assets confiscated and banned from future practice, we will only give a green light to similar risk-laden behavior in new forms,” he writes.

“Little has changed since the promise in 2009 that we would bring finance to heel. The banks that were deemed ‘too big to fail’ are now even bigger than they were."

“Similarly... some regulators freely confess that risks have morphed and migrated out of the formal banking system and if the next crisis came they would still not know what is owed and by whom and to whom. 2009 has proved to be the turning point at which history failed to turn.”

The book details the time he, along with his chancellor Alistair Darling, arranged a rescue package for some UK banks.

In a revealing personal insight into the life of a prime minister, Brown writes about a time he instructed his family to pack their bags, convinced he would be forced to stand down if the rescue package failed and he had to quickly flee Downing Street.

At the time taxpayers’ money was invested in Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), HBOS and Lloyds to save them from going under. Brown, 66, says foreign countries have been quick to prosecute bankers when they fail – but the UK has resisted.

Not sure which countries he's referring to, but it certainly isn't the USA. Canada had no bank failures because we have tough regulations governing our banks.

The former politician is especially scathing of Fred ‘the Shred’ Goodwin, the former chief executive of RBS, who Brown says drove the bank into the ground and gambled with the public’s cash while living a luxurious lifestyle.

He also attacks Barclays for what he says was a decision to seek a state bailout from Qatar and the UAE, while attacking rival banks who were helped by the public purse in Britain.

“In doing so, they [Barclays] made it far more difficult to explain to the British public that this was a widespread banking crisis and not just an emergency faced by one or two banks and, by not telling the full truth, they hampered our ability to persuade legislators around the world of the need for far-reaching reform.”

That was probably the idea all along.