Islam - Current Day - Muslim District in Vienna; 3 Germans Financing al-Nusra; Merkel's Egyptian Spy; Jordan's King on Shifting Sands; ISIS Wife in Ireland

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Vienna: Muslims screaming ‘Allahu akbar’ try to burn Christmas tree, say it ‘has no place in the Muslim district’

JAN 6, 2021 3:00 PM 

“‘The Christmas tree has no place in the Muslim district,'” 

Translated from “‘Christbaum hat in muslimischem Bezirk nichts verloren,'” Heute, Jan 5, 2021

The police report now shows how intense the rioting was on the night of Favoriten (a district in Vienna). One suspect testified why a Christmas tree should burn.

Shortly after midnight, around 40 young people got together, made massive use of pyrotechnics, and tried to break into a jewelry store. The pressure waves from the pyrotechnic objects were so strong that several windows were broken at once. The Christmas tree was also showered with a mixture of diesel and gasoline, and several garbage cans flew through the air and / or against the windows of shops on Reumannplatz.

“Muslim District”

The fire brigade, police and ambulance were quickly at the site, and the tree was covered with extinguishing foam. “A Christmas tree has no place in a Muslim district, said one of the rioters,” said one of the emergency services. Several officers were pelted with rockets and “Allahu Akbar” slogans by the raging mob, and there were nine short-term arrests – you can read more about this here.

“A Christmas tree has no place in a Muslim district"! This is a glimpse of what is to come as Muslim families grow much faster than European families. Also, migrants are still entering Europe. So, the amount of land called 'Muslim districts' will grow rapidly until Muslims outnumber the native populations of European countries, whereupon every district will be considered Muslim and there will be no room for Christmas trees, or Christians, or anyone who doesn't worship Allah and his prophet.

The investigations into serious damage to property, theft by burglary, attempted serious bodily harm and according to the narcotics law are ongoing.

Security Summit

Police President Gerhard Pürstl now wants to invite you to a security summit, while the SP is calling for concrete solutions. The FP warns of a “wishy-washy” summit.

Woman and 2 men arrested in German terrorism probe for

alleged funding of Syrian Islamist group

7 Jan 2021 14:42

German federal police ©  REUTERS / Hannibal Hanschke

Three people have been arrested in Germany over their alleged financing and support for terrorism abroad, including raising online donations for a Syrian Islamist group, federal prosecutors said in a statement on Thursday.

Federal police officers detained the trio in the early hours of Thursday morning, with arrests in the southern cities of Ulm and Munich, and the northern town of Delmenhorst.

Their apartments were searched, while police also raided the properties of 11 other people suspected of aiding terrorism abroad.

The three people arrested are accused of financing terrorism, supporting a terrorist organization abroad and violating the Foreign Trade Act.

A federal judge will decide on Thursday whether they should be placed into pre-trial detention.

Prosecutors said two German men, identified as Tassilo M and Önder A, along with a German woman – who also had Serbian and Kosovan citizenship – funded Syrian-based Sunni Islamist group Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) from across Europe.

Alleged HTS member Önder A is said to have set up an online fundraising page in Turkey, through which prosecutors claim he funded the group's “jihad” by publicly securing cash to procure weapons and support militants abroad.

The man named as Tassilo M is alleged to have sent Önder A money on three occasions to be used by HTS in Syria, while the female suspect, Valdete M, is accused of making two transactions in 2018.

HTS is an umbrella organization of other Islamist terrorist groups, which prosecutors said has “the goal of overthrowing the Syrian government by force and establishing a ‘state of God’ in the country.”

The group dominates Syria's northwestern province of Idlib, and split from Al-Qaeda in 2016, when it was known as the Al-Nusra Front.

'Egyptian spy' who worked in Angela Merkel's press office

for 20 years, charged in Germany

16 Nov, 2020 18:08

FILE PHOTO. © Global Look Press / dpa / Matthias Bein

German prosecutors have charged an alleged Egyptian spy who worked in Chancellor Angela Merkel's press office in Berlin for 20 years, claiming his espionage efforts date back to at least July 2010.

Identified in a statement from the German Federal Prosecutor's Office on Monday as Amin K., the suspect first joined the German government's press office in 1999 in the area of ​​visitor services, and worked there until 2019, when he came under investigation.

German news outlets reported that he'd worked as a mid-level employee, meaning he would have taken a special exam and undergone at least two years of vocational training to get the job.

The suspect, a German citizen, is alleged to have aided Egyptian intelligence by "observing and evaluating the media with regard to German domestic and foreign policy," prosecutors said. The charges also claim Amin K participated in an unsuccessful bid to "recruit a source for the Egyptian secret service" by providing them with "the necessary contact."

The suspect was also occasionally invited to official receptions in Germany, including a farewell event for the previous Egyptian ambassador to Germany in 2019.

In return for supplying Cairo with information, Amin K. secured "preferential treatment" for himself and his family, the German indictment said, including support for his mother in "asserting her Egyptian pension claims."

The German government has previously stressed that the former press office worker did not have access to sensitive information. "Direct access to data from the parliamentary visit programme or other government press office databases, in particular media accreditation and the media service, was not possible," a spokesperson said in August.

According to an annual report presented by Germany's Minister for the Interior Horst Seehofer in July, Cairo had tried to monitor Egyptians living abroad, potentially in an effort to keep tabs on dissent against President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi.

"There are indications that Egyptian services are trying to recruit Egyptians living in Germany for intelligence purposes through their visits to Egyptian diplomatic missions in Germany and their trips to Egypt," the report read.

Jordanians Have Spoken – The Muslim Brotherhood Is Out,

Is The King Next?

Micha Gefen, Israel Rising

November 15, 2020

Israel has always put up with the King of Jordan’s addiction to the Muslim Brotherhood. After all, the King has served the Israeli government’s interest by providing a sort of known quantity on its Eastern border. True, he supports repressive laws in his country, a form of Apartheid against Palestinians living there and he cozies up to anti-semites around the Middle East.

Israel put up with the King’s hatred of the Jewish people and their right to Jerusalem and the Land of Israel, because until this summer Jordan and Egypt represented the only Arab states that were willing to make peace with the Jewish State.

With the UAE and Bahrain signing the Abraham Accord, Jordan’s King no longer has a use for Israel nor the Gulf States. In fact, his long-standing pact with the Muslim Brotherhood may in fact be the very reason none of the Sunni Gulf States want to put up with him anymore.

This is why the recent elections in Jordan were such a blow to the King and his Islamicist partners.

Abed AlMaala, deputy secretary-general of the Jordanian opposition said: “In Jordan, 3 things are clear. First, the King has placed himself above the Constitution, so he can do what he wants. Second, he appoints both the Prime Minister and all the members of the Upper House of Parliament. Finally, no one can run for office of any type without the king’s permission. Usually this means swearing allegiance and paying a hefty fee (bribe) to be on the ballot. Once on the ballot, it is almost assured that you will win, because it implies that the king has blessed your candidacy.”

For years now, there has been a growing grassroots movement opposing the Hashemite Royal Family. As the average Jordanian has seen a steep decline in his finances and quality of life, the animosity between the masses and the regime has grown.

In order to hold back the citizenry, the King has instituted repressive measures, but now they are in fact beginning to falter as well.

If the King cannot stablize his Kingdom, Israel may see its Eastern neighbor enter the type of chaos it was worried about to its North. Then again, with the UAE and Bahrain, it may be high time that the King is shown the door anyway. It is kind of hard to distract your citizens by blaming their lot on Israel when the UAE and Bahrain, both very successful see things quite differently.

Irish ISIS wife granted bail on conditions including internet ban

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Former Defence Forces soldier is accused of membership of terrorist organisation

Thu, Dec 19, 2019, 16:33

Tom Tuite, Irish Times

Former Irish Defence Forces soldier Lisa Smith, who is facing trial accused of membership of the terrorist organisation Isis, has been granted bail with strict conditions including an internet and social media ban.

The former soldier, who left Ireland and married after she converted to Islam, had been found in a Syrian refugee camp, and after a trek to Turkey with her daughter, aged two, she was brought back to Ireland on December 1st last.

She was arrested on arrival and questioned for three days before she was charged with being a member of the Islamicist terror group.

She had bail refused on December 4th at Dublin District Court, and she has been held at Limerick Prison.

Family members were caring for her child, the court then heard.

The 37-year-old brought her renewed bail application to the High Court in Cloverhill on Thursday.

She will be able to take up bail and must comply with a number of conditions once she lodges €500 and a further €1,000 is put forward by an independent surety. Until then she has to remain in prison.

Mr Justice Robert Eagar made an order restricting the publication of evidence in support of the objection to bail to protect the integrity of the jury system. But he said the outcome and any conditions, if conditions were imposed, could be reported.

Her charges sheet states that between October 28th, 2015 and December 1st, 2019 she was a member of an unlawful terrorist group “styling itself the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) also known as Dawlat al-Iraq al-Islamiyya, Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (Isis) and Dawlat al Islamiya fi Iraq wa al-Sham, otherwise known as ‘Da’esh’ and the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham”.

Membership is an offence contrary to the Criminal Justice (Terrorist Offences) Act 2005.

Smith joined the Irish Defence Forces after leaving school in 2000 and also served with the Air Corps on the government jet.

Special Detective Unit (SDU) Sgt Gareth Kane objected to bail citing the seriousness of the case and possible flight risk.

More details are available at the Irish Times.

2 of 3 Richest Terror Groups Backed By Iran - Thank You Mr Obama

Hezbollah and Hamas rank at top of Forbes’ ‘Richest Terror Groups’ list (Shutterstock)

By: Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

One of the more far-reaching consequences of former President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran is on display in Forbes Israel’s latest ranking of the richest terrorist groups in the world, as in 2017 Iran-backed Hezbollah leaped to the top of list with a whopping $1.1 billion in revenue.

That is not to say that all their income stems from Iran. Terrorist organizations in general also fund their purchase of arms, training and salary payments to their members from such criminal activities as drug smuggling, money laundering, kickbacks, kidnappings, ‘protection’, etc., just as organized crime does.

But the nuclear deal, it should be recalled, allowed for the release of billions of dollars into Iran’s state coffers from the lifting of internationally imposed sanctions, and the unfreezing of its assets abroad. This, in turn, allowed the world’s largest sponsor of terrorism to open the spigots to its proxies, and the results can clearly be seen by comparing this year’s “Top Ten” list with the previous one, made in 2014. Lebanese group Hezbollah, which has been fighting in Syria for years for Iranian ally Bashar al-Assad, was then ranked fourth, with $500 million – only half of what it has today.

Hamas has $700 million

The Gaza Strip’s Hamas, meanwhile, is now in third place, having actually dropped a rung from 2014. (The Taliban now occupy second place, with a revenue of $800 million). Forbes lists them as currently receiving about $700 million a year, vs. a billion dollars three years ago. They have two well-known state sponsors, Qatar and, again, Iran. But in the decade since it took over Gaza, Hamas also became expert in extracting money from its own citizens.

According to Forbes’ 2014 report, Hamas makes most of its money from a sophisticated tax system aimed at, among other things, pocketing large portions of the international aid that flows into Gaza. It also runs hundreds of businesses, controls several banks, and has levies on all consumer goods entering the Gaza Strip. All in all, the report says, about 15% of Gaza’s economy ends up in this organization’s pocket.

ISIS drops to 5th place

There is a steep drop-off from the top three richest terror organizations to the bottom seven. Al-Qaeda and its affiliates are listed next (4th) with only $300 million. The Islamic State used to be the richest terror organization the world has ever known, with an annual turnover of around $2 billion in 2014, but its defeat in Iraq and subsequent relinquishment of territory have dropped it to fifth place with a drastic reduction to $200 million.

It should be noted that since this Radical Islamist group is Sunni, they are the enemies of Shiite Iran, so their funding had to come from independent sources – a major part of which came from black-market sales from the oil and gas fields they had taken over and have since lost. Now, says the report, their main sources of cash are donations and ransom money from kidnappings.

The two non-Muslim organizations that made this year’s list are the PKK (#6), which mainly fights in Turkey for Kurdish independence, and the REAL IRA (#10), which still aims to bring about a united Ireland by force, with a mere $50 million in income.

Meanwhile, today saw the 6th consecutive day of growing protests against a faltering economy in Iran. People are tired of unemployment, they are tired of growing Islamism, and they are tired of seeing hundreds of millions of dollars going to Hezbollah, Hamas and Houthi rebels in Yemen. I fear this backlash is going to get very ugly, very quickly.

Cash from CIA Used to Refill Al Qaida Coffers

Yet another example of the US funding both sides of a war. 

While refusing to pay ransoms for Americans kidnapped by militant groups, money has been siphoned off to enemy fighters

MATTHEW ROSENBERG, NYTPublished: 14:42 March 15, 2015Gulf News

CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia  - AFP

Washington: In the spring of 2010, Afghan officials struck a deal to free an Afghan diplomat held hostage by Al Qaida. But the price was steep — $5 million (Dh18 million) — and senior security officials were scrambling to come up with the money.

They first turned to a secret fund that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) bankrolled with monthly cash deliveries to the presidential palace in Kabul, according to several Afghan officials involved in the episode. The Afghan government, they said, had already squirreled away about $1 million from that fund.

Within weeks, that money and $4 million more provided from other countries was handed over to Al Qaida, replenishing its coffers after a relentless CIA campaign of drone strikes in Pakistan had decimated the militant network’s upper ranks.

“God blessed us with a good amount of money this month,” Atiyah Abd Al Rahman, the group’s general manager, wrote in a letter to Osama Bin Laden in June 2010, noting that the cash would be used for weapons and other operational needs.

See also: More Wonders of the Dizzying World of Middle East War Financing

Americans Losing Control of World Monetary System

UK support for China-backed Asia bank prompts US concern

The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank agreement was signed in October
by 21 countries, including China

The US has expressed concern over the UK's bid to become a founding member of a Chinese-backed development bank.

The UK is the first big Western economy to apply for membership of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).

The US has raised questions over the bank's commitment to international standards on governance.
"There will be times when we take a different approach," a spokesperson for Prime Minister David Cameron said about the rare rebuke from the US.

The AIIB, which was created in October by 21 countries, led by China, will fund Asian energy, transport and infrastructure projects.

The UK insisted it would demand the bank adhere to strict banking and oversight procedures.
"We think that it's in the UK's national interest," said Mr Cameron's spokesperson.

'Not normal'
Pippa Malmgren, a former economic advisor to US President George W Bush, told the BBC that the public chastisement from the US indicates the move might have come as a surprise.

"It's not normal for the United States to be publicly scolding the British," she said, adding that the US's focus on domestic affairs at the moment could have led to the oversight.

Chinese construction site

However, Mr Cameron's spokesperson said UK Chancellor George Osborne did discuss the measure with his US counterpart before announcing the move.

In a statement announcing the UK's intention to join the bank, Mr Osborne said that joining the AIIB at the founding stage would create "an unrivaled opportunity for the UK and Asia to invest and grow together".

The hope is that investment in the bank will give British companies an opportunity to invest in the world's fastest growing markets.

But the US sees the Chinese effort as a ploy to dilute US control of the banking system, and has persuaded regional allies such as Australia, South Korea and Japan to stay out of the bank.

This is, indeed, another nail in the coffin of American control of the world monetary system. I fully expect the AIIB to use the Chinese Yuan as its base currency thereby further weakening the American dollar as the base of the world economy. Having a major western economy sign-on to that is of very great concern to Americans, as it should be.

In response to the move, US National Security Council spokesman Patrick Ventrell said: "We believe any new multilateral institution should incorporate the high standards of the World Bank and the regional development banks."

"Based on many discussions, we have concerns about whether the AIIB will meet these high standards, particularly related to governance, and environmental and social safeguards," he added.

Analysis: Linda Yueh, BBC chief business correspondent

It's a tricky task to align oneself with both China and the US. The Americans are apparently unhappy with the UK, while China has welcomed the British application.

It may be a pragmatic move, but it's hard not to offend one side or another.

I suspect this will be the first of many decisions to be taken by countries such as the UK to position themselves between the new economic superpower and the existing one.

The trick will be to come away with economic advantage at minimal political cost. We'll find out if this one will pay off for the UK.

'No consultation'
Some 21 nations came together last year to sign a memorandum for the bank's establishment, including Singapore, India and Thailand.

But in November last year, Australia's Prime Minister Tony Abbott offered lukewarm support to the AIIB and said its actions must be transparent.

US President Barack Obama, who met Mr Abbott on the sidelines of a Beijing summit last year, agreed the bank had to be transparent, accountable and truly multilateral.

"Those are the same rules by which the World Bank or IMF (International Monetary Fund) or Asian Development Bank or any other international institution needs to abide by," Mr Obama said at the time.

The Financial Times (FT) newspaper reported on Thursday that US officials had complained about the British move.

The report cited an unnamed senior US administration official as saying the British decision was taken after "virtually no consultation with the US".

"We are wary about a trend toward constant accommodation of China," the newspaper quoted the US official as saying.

However, in response to the UK announcement, World Bank president Jim Yong Kim told a news conference he supported the goals of the AIIB.

"From the perspective simply of the need for more infrastructure spending, there's no doubt that from our perspective, we welcome the entry of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank," he said.

Offence

The founding member countries of the AIIB have agreed the basic parameters that would determine the capital structure of the new bank would be relative gross domestic product.

Banking experts have estimated that, if taken at face value, this would give China a 67% shareholding in the new bank.

That's significantly different than the Asia Development Bank, which has a similar structure to the World Bank and has been in existence 1966. There, the majority stakes are controlled by Japan and the US.

Tony Abbott poses with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the
Apec summit banquet in Beijing - 10 November 2014

Speaking in Beijing last year, Mr Abbott said Australia would only sign up to "a genuinely multilateral body"

When asked if Britain would seek assurances before it signed on as a member that no one country would be able to unilaterally control the AIIB, economist David Kuo told the BBC that the UK "wouldn't have a great deal of say in the matter".

"He who pays the piper calls the tune," he said. "The UK could try and negotiate a power to veto projects but it is unlikely to get it," Mr Kuo, who is from investment advisers The Motley Fool, said.

The UK was caught between the US on the West and China in the East, he added.

"It hopes that it can exert force from within, rather than put pressure from the outside - but [the UK] is only one voice in a crowd of many."

With regard to the competition the AIIB would give the ADB or World Bank, Mr Kuo said there were plenty of infrastructure projects in Asia that needed funding.

"The existing sources of money can't do everything. So every little helps."

Argentine Journalist Flees for His Life After Threats

The first journalist to report on the death of an Argentine state prosecutor, who was investigating the deadly 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, arrived in Israel on Sunday after fleeing the South American country.

We reported that story here last week.

Damian Pachter, who also holds Argentine-Israeli citizenship, said he had "quickly" fled Argentina fearing for his life following threats to his security.

"I'm leaving because my life is in danger. My phones are tapped," Pachter, a journalist with the Buenos Aires Herald,  told the website Infobae.

The website carried a photograph of Pachter, wearing a cap and carrying sunglasses, at the airport before he boarded an Aerolineas Argentinas flight.

Damian Pachter arrives in Israel

Telam, an Argentine state-run news agency, reported that the initial flight was bound for neighboring Uruguay.

"I'm going to come back to this country when my sources tell me the conditions have changed. I don't think that will be during this government," Patcher told Infobae.

State prosecutor Alberto Nisman was found dead in his apartment late on January 18, a gunshot wound to his head and a 22 caliber pistol by his side along with a single shell casing.

He had been scheduled to appear before Congress the following day to answer questions about his allegation that President Cristina Fernandez conspired to derail his investigation of the attack.

His death and a storm of conspiracy theories around it have rocked Argentina.

Argentina suspects rogue agents from its own intelligence services were behind Nisman's death.

The government says Nisman's allegations and his death were linked to a power struggle at Argentina's intelligence agency and agents who had recently been fired.

Argentine courts have accused a group of Iranians of planting the 1994 bomb, which killed 85 people.

Nisman had claimed that President Fernandez opened a secret back channel to Iran to cover up Tehran's alleged involvement in the bombing and gain access to Iranian oil needed to help close Argentina's $7 billion per year energy deficit.

Fernandez's government called the accusation absurd. 

Obama Pays Iran $12 BILLION to Talk Nukes - Where's the Media?

Iran Flexing Muscles becoming a Rival for IS

"Three Arab capitals have today ended in Iran's hands and belong to the Islamic Iranian revolution".

Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, boasted that Sanaa, Yemen, which fell to rebels yesterday, has now become the fourth Muslim capital that is on its way to joining the Iranian revolution.

Alireza Zakani, a loyalist of the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, said that Iran considered the Yemeni revolution to be an extension of its own and that 14 out of 20 provinces would soon come under the control of the Houthis and that they would not stop there:

"Definitely, the Yemeni revolution will be not be confined to Yemen alone. It will extend following its success into Saudi territories. The Yemeni-Saudi vast borders will help expedite its reach into the depth of Saudi land."

That's bad news for Saudi Arabia's brand new King - the old one died yesterday. They just announced yesterday that they would build a 1000 km wall on their border with Iraq to keep IS out. Now, Iran is threatening to come at them from the other side of the country. Talk about volatile times.

So now we have IS starting to build a caliphate in Iraq and Syria, Iran building a coalition of like-minded believers with strong influence in 4 capitol cities: Sanaa, Baghdad, Damascus, and Beirut. Admittedly, none of those are stable and could quickly fall to another regime at any time.

And let us not rule out the self-inflating ego of Turkey's President Tayyip Erdogan. While sympathetic to IS, or is he just helping them decrease the Kurdish population; he hates Kurds. In any event, I do not see him becoming a #2 to Al Baghdadi, or anyone else. So I consider Turkey to be a third element in the Islamic insanity that is the middle east.

The west can be grateful that these sects aren't pulling together; that would really be frightening. And yet, it is just possible that they could unite for a period of time against a common enemy, Israel. 

With Obama granting Iran all the time in the world to build its nuclear bombs with which they promised to destroy Israel, and now he's helping fund those bombs by rewarding Iran with billion of dollars in previously frozen assets; Israel has no choice but to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities. When they do, I believe the US will plead innocence and abandon Israel to the mercy of Islam (OK, there is no mercy in Islam), and the mercy of God (where there really is mercy).

What happens next is that Turkey will lead a conglomeration of Muslim states against Israel and all hell will break loose. 

Photo: First satellite images of a new long-range Iranian missile on a launch pad outside Tehran. (Channel 2 screenshot). It's the first time we have ever seen it in the West. also capable of carrying a conventional or non-conventional warhead “far beyond Europe,” the report added.

U.S. to Award Iran $11.9 Billion Through End of Nuke Talk, By Adam Kredo, Free Beacon, January 22, 2015

The Obama administration on Wednesday paid $490 million in cash assets to Iran and will have released a total of $11.9 billion to the Islamic Republic by the time nuclear talks are scheduled to end in June, according to figures provided by the State Department.

Today’s $490 million release, the third such payment of this amount since Dec. 10, was agreed to by the Obama administration under the parameters of another extension in negotiations over Tehran’s contested nuclear program that was inked in November.

Iran will receive a total of $4.9 billion in unfrozen cash assets via 10 separate payments by the United States through June 22, when talks with Iran are scheduled to end with a final agreement aimed at curbing the country’s nuclear work, according to a State Department official.

Iran received $4.2 billion in similar payments under the 2013 interim agreement with the United States and was then given another $2.8 billion by the Obama administration last year in a bid to keep Iran committed to the talks through November, when negotiators parted ways without reaching an agreement. 

In other words the US is paying Iran for nothing! All those trade sanctions - just for show!

Iran will have received a total of $11.9 billion in cash assets by the end of June if current releases continue on pace as scheduled.

So, help me think this through, I'm a little slow these days. The US has imposed sanctions on Iran in order to get them to the bargaining table on nuclear development. At the same time, the US is paying Iran billions of dollars to negotiate. I must be missing something here!

Is it any wonder Iran is stalling as much as possible? That not only gives them time to manufacture weapons grade plutonium, but the longer the negotiations drag out, the more money the US will pay them. What's the incentive to negotiate? 

So, if Iran develops nuclear weapons and annihilates Israel and parts of the US, we can rest in the knowledge that much of it was paid for by American dollars. Is there any hope for American survival when we contribute to our enemies plans to destroy us?

The release of this money has drawn outrage from some Republican lawmakers who filed legislation last year to prevent the release of cash due to a lack of restrictions on how Iran can spend the money.

These cash payments by the United States have been made with no strings attached, prompting concerns that Iran could use the funds to finance its worldwide terror operations, which include the financial backing of Hamas, Hezbollah, and other rogue entities.

Senators—including Mark Kirk (R., Ill.), Kelly Ayotte (R., N.H.), and John Cornyn (R., Texas)—sought last year to put a hold on the cash infusions until the White House could certify that Iran was not using the money to support terrorism.

Kirk, who is preparing to offer legislation that would tighten sanctions on Iran, said that the ongoing payments could help Iran fuel its terror empire well into the near future.

“Between November 2014 and July 2015, the interim deal’s direct forms of sanctions relief will allow Iran access to roughly $4.9 billion in frozen money,” Kirk told the Washington Free Beacon “That’s equal to what it’d cost Iran to fund Hezbollah for as much as 50 years.”

The Pentagon estimates Iran has spent $100 to $200 million per year funding Hezbollah.

Entities likely to receive support from Iran include the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and the regime of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, the legislation suggests.

When final negotiations between the United States and Iran failed in November, negotiators decided once more to extend the talks through June of this year. The terms of that extension granted Iran the 10 payments of $490 million, a State Department official said.

“With respect to sanctions relief, the United States will enable the repatriation of $4.9 billion of Iranian revenue held abroad during the extension,” the official said.

The first two payments were made in December, followed by Wednesday’s payment.

The next release is scheduled for Feb. 11, with two more scheduled for March. The rest of the frozen cash assets will be given back to Iran on April 15, May 6, May 27, and June 22, respectively.

Mark Dubowitz, the executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), said the ongoing release of these assets has provided Iran with a critical “financial lifeline.”

“The Obama administration provided Iran with a financial lifeline through both direct sanctions relief and the de-escalation of sanctions pressure that helped the regime stabilize its economy after a severe sanctions-induced economic crisis in 2012 and 2013,” Dubowitz said. “It is not a surprise that this has increased Iranian negotiating leverage and hardened the supreme leader’s nuclear intransigence.”

In addition to decrying the lack of restrictions in place to ensure that Iran does not use the released funds to sponsor terrorism, critics of the sanctions relief protest that Iran is benefitting while the United States receives little in return.

Iran has continued to enrich uranium under the interim deal, adding what one critic, Rep. Brad Sherman (D., Calif.) referred to as “about one bomb’s worth” to its reserves.

Iran also has continued to make advances on the plutonium track, which provides it with a second path to a nuclear bomb.

President Hassan Rouhani of Iran announced last week that the country has begun constructing two new light water nuclear reactors, a move that the U.S. State Department said is permissible under the terms of the interim agreement.

Is there anything else we can possibly do to help blow-up Israel?

Pulmonary Hypertension - The Monster Claims Another

Another Facebook PHriend gone! And 2 little girls fighting for their lives. They need your prayers and they need a cure.

Patricia McFarland-Myers

I don't mean to go all PH on you today. But we've just lost another beautiful phriend to this monster. RIP Lori Rodriguez. Lord we need a cure!

Lori Sobrowski Rodriguez - beautiful, happy, young woman passed away yesterday from PH-related heart failure. This photo is stunning in that it was taken Christmas Day, 2014.



Right - the last photo that she posted. How poignant an you get?


Breathe For Riley
Yesterday at 13:57 ·

Had to call Dr Hanna today. Always glad when he is the one that answers the pulmonary hypertension emergency cell phone for CHOP families.

Riley looked funny (extremely pale, dark nails) this morning so I put her monitor on and her oxygen level was only 65% on 4 liters. He told me to give her extra lasix and keep him posted.

I ran out and bought a scale and she put on over a pound since coming home (all fluid). She then got her dose of steroids and came up to about 80% on 5 liters.

She hasn't really left the couch since coming home. Most of her toys haven't even been taken out of boxes because she hasn't had much interest in anything but laying down.

We have tickets tomorrow for Disney on Ice, and I'm hoping we can have her stable enough to go because she is really looking forward to it.

Riley Buchanan is 6 years old and awaiting a lung transplant at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

http://www.gofundme.com/rileysnewlungs


Hope PHor Aubrie Starr

Sunday morning Prayers for Aubrey please.
Aubrie still has a fever, no word on her test. She still will not eat and sleeping a lot :-(


Hope PHor Aubrie Starr
Yesterday at 04:47 ·

Aubrie is back in the hospital again. Fever was up to 103.5 last night so we brought her to the ER. Aubrie has an infection in her lungs, they are testing to find out why. It could possibly be the Flu, if that comes back negative then it's on to the next test. We are also waiting on blood cultures taken last night. Fever was down last night but back up this morning.

Hope PHor Aubrie Starr
18 December at 20:10 · Edited ·

Today I received a call, Aubrie's case was denied by the specialty center at Chapel Hill. Now I will begin working with her team to find her a good out of state lung transplant specialty center.

Then we will have to send them her case and pray we find someone experienced enough to agree to guide us in her care.

We will begin trying to setup fund raisers to help pay for traveling and extended stay expenses soon. Once we are with a specialty center and she is listed for transplant it is possible we may have to completely relocate until she has her transplant and completes all recovery. Please continue to keep us in your prayers!


Hope PHor Aubrie Starr
2 December at 20:01 ·
Update: Aubrie's breathing has been so much better!!! She is playing again and happy as ever. So glad that tomorrow on my day off I will be able to spend some time with her having fun and not at any appts or with her feeling bad, tomorrow's mommy and me time is going to be great!!

Israel Blasts Switzerland for Calling Geneva Convention Meeting

Israel blasted Switzerland on Thursday for calling a special meeting of the High Contracting Parties of the Fourth Geneva Convention next week, which is expected to severely censure Israel for its actions in the West Bank and Gaza.

Switzerland, the Depository of the Fourth Geneva Convention, summoned the meeting following a request put forward by the Palestinian Authority after it joined the convention in April, following the breakdown of the US-backed Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.

The meeting is scheduled for December 17.

UN Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva

The Fourth Geneva Convention on the Rules of War was adopted in 1949 in a response to Nazi atrocities. It governs actions during war and the treatment of civilians in occupied territories. In addition, it also outlaws the resettlement by an occupying power of its own civilians on territory under its military control.

Since it was adopted, it has met only twice, in 1999 and 2001, both times to deal with Israel.

Israel's Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nachshon said that Switzerland, as the depository, is obligated to act in a “neutral and apolitical manner.”

“Switzerland’s decision to convene the convention raises great doubts about its obligation to these principles, while it is giving its hand to the politicization of the Geneva Convention and the laws of war in general,” he said.

Nachshon said convening the meeting is a political step whose sole goal is to use the Fourth Geneva Convention as a platform to blast Israel.

Not only will Israel not participate, he said, but it is rethinking its position on other Swiss initiatives regarding international humanitarian law. Israel, he said, is calling on all countries for whom the Fourth Geneva Convention is important to boycott the meeting.

The US and Australia joined Israel in boycotting the 2001 meeting and are expected to do the same this time as well. Canada is also expected to boycott the meeting.

The decision to convene the meeting was only one piece of bad news Jerusalem received Thursday, the other being the decision by the French Senate to follow the lead of the French parliament’s lower house and recommend the government recognize “Palestine.”

The resolution passed by the slim margin of 153-146.

What set this vote off from other measures that have already passed through the parliaments in Spain, Britain and Ireland, however, is that the French resolution was proposed by the governing party, and not by opposition parties using the measure as a “club” against the governing party.

On the other hand, the first country that may not pass such a resolution is Denmark, which held a debate on the motion on Thursday.

Danish Ambassador Jesper Vahr predicted during a panel discussion at the annual Jerusalem Post Diplomatic Conference that “the vast majority of the Danish parliament will reject the proposal to recognize the state of Palestine.”

He explained that this would not be because Denmark does not believe in a two-state solution, but, rather, that to do so at this time would not be “fruitful.” He also indicated that he thinks recognition should be done by the EU in unison, rather than by each country unilaterally.

Vahr started a firestorm at the conference when he stated that Israel should be held to a higher standard than the Arab countries. "Because you are one of us" he added. "You wouldn't want to be judged by the same standards as the middle east. You should be judged by European standards."

Caroline B. Glick, the Jerusalem Post’s senior contributing editor, responded angrily. She accused Europe of having "an obsession that Jews have seen from Europeans from the time of Jesus.” 

In 2001, the United Nations Security Council approved a binding resolution that bars UN member states from funding or supporting terrorist organizations, Glick said.

That resolution, she said, has not stopped Europe from “funneling billions of euros into rebuilding terrorist-controlled Gaza.

“This is in contravention of binding international law that you signed onto,” she charged.

"But when it comes to Israel, Europe simply invents international law, Glick said. Europe acts as if it is required by law to sanction Israel for activity over the pre-1967 lines in West Bank settlements and Jerusalem, even though there is no such binding international legislation", she said.

“There is no such binding law. You guys are funding settlements in Western Sahara.

You are funding them directly,” she said. “This is not a double standard. This is a singular standard for Israel. This is not about international law. It is about an obsessive, compulsive need to constantly pick at the Jewish state,” she said.

Aviv Shir-On, the Foreign Ministry’s deputy director- general for Western Europe, said a Danish refusal to pass such a resolution would be “significant.”

Shir-On added, without referencing the Danish parliament, that he finds it odd that even as parliaments in Europe are taking the liberty to debate the recognition of a Palestinian state, “at the same time Europe criticizes the Israeli parliament debating a Jewish state. This is a bit strange and this is what we are trying to explain to our friends in Europe.”

China's Out-of-Control Construction Industry Defies all Logic and Sanity

The Ordos Shopping Mall sits empty, much like the rest of the city that surrounds it.

China's ghost cities aren't going away. Even as Beijing wants local governments to move away from GDP targeting and is more focused on developing social housing, wasteful construction still plagues China.

A report from CLSA's Nicole Wong, cited by The Wall Street Journal, found that the problem lies in the excess supply in China's third-tier cities. Vacancy rates for homes constructed in the past five years stand at 15% but are projected to rise over 20% in 2016-17, according to Wong. The very concept of vacant homes in China is barely fathomable for me.

Rob Schmitz, China correspondent for Marketplace/American Public Media, recently ran a story titled "China's economic boom leaves a trail of ghost cities." We reached out to Schmitz to get an update on Kangbashi and Yujiapu.

Here is an excerpt from our email interview with Schmitz:

Business Insider: How has Ordos changed now from when it first started making headlines a few years ago?

Rob Schmitz: I first visited Ordos in October 2010, the same year many other Western journalists had reported on the city. When I returned this year, there were a lot of interesting differences. Back in 2010, the few people who lived there seemed defensive about the Western media labeling the place a ghost city. This time, everyone I spoke to had come to an acceptance that Kangbashi (the proposed new city of Ordos) was most likely going to remain mostly vacant, and many seemed OK with that.  

Empty street in front of vacant residential complex in the city of Kangbashi, Ordos.

I spoke to one of the largest developers while I was there and he told me that Kangbashi had a population density similar more to a city in Canada or the U.S. than of a city in China, and he thought this was a draw for the city. But my conversations with folks didn't confirm this. I've never seen a city of similar physical size in Canada nor in the U.S. as empty as Kangbashi is today, and most of the people I spoke to during my latest visit didn't seem very happy to be living in a place where most of the buildings were empty.

Another big difference between this time and last was that the Ordos government has moved its headquarters to Kangbashi, so there are more people there during the day around the city's civic center. That said, the government of Ordos has actually increased the size of the city since 2010 by building more skyscrapers and infrastructure including a park with a large lake, three sports stadiums, and a skyscraper office park on the banks of the lake which are under construction.

I walked through a development of more than a dozen 20-story high-rises built adjacent to this office park, and there were no signs of life. The same developer I mentioned above also expressed concern over the fate of three gigantic sports stadiums built specifically for China's 'Ethnic Minority Traditional Sports Games' of 2015 outside of Kangbashi. It was surprising that after being admonished by China's own state-run press, Ordos' government has continued to build at the same rate as it had done before.

Ordos is a province in north-central China, in Inner Mongolia, about 500 km west of Beijing.

Ordos has issued a construction ban to halt any further wasteful projects,
scheduled to go into effect in three years. Before then, the government is
spending hundreds of millions of dollars on three gigantic
sports stadiums for the 2015 Chinese Ethnic Games.

The last difference from last time is that real estate prices in Kangbashi have plummeted since my visit in 2010, and I met dozens of migrant workers who were renting vacant office spaces as apartments for as low as $65 a month. These spaces weren't built to house people, but one office building I visited was full of migrant workers at night, living in windowless office spaces and using an office bathroom down the hall to bathe.

I also visited a government office in charge of mediating disputes between shadow bankers and those who couldn't afford to repay their loans. This is a very big problem in Ordos, as most businesses there would never qualify for a loan from a state bank, and now that the local economy is doing so poorly, many businesses have gone bankrupt. The office was in charge of repossessing whatever assets they could get from those who owed money. Their storage room was full of refrigerators, flat-screen TVs, and shelves full of dozens of bottles of high-priced Baijiu (Rice Wine) which they had seized.

BI: Do the people that you meet in these ghost cities have any plans of returning to their hometowns or are they optimistic?

RS: Many have already returned home. Those who are left are looking to make a little money and then leave when the economy finally fizzles out for good. Keep in mind that nearly twenty miles away from Kangbashi (the largely empty city) is Dongsheng, which is known as the old city, and actually has a functioning economy and population, so many people are watching this unfold from there.

Construction work on Yujiapu, planned to be
"the financial capital of the world,"
has been largely put on hold
(above is an artist's conception)

BI: Some, like Stephen Roach, have argued that these ghost cities can be explained away as part of China's urbanization plan. In your experience, does this add up?

RS: Perhaps some of them can, but for the most part, I don't agree with this statement. While it is true that some cities are filling up – the outskirts of Zhengzhou, which the TV program "60 Minutes" profiled a couple of years ago as a ghost town is a good example of a city that has defied early criticisms – other cities like Ordos do not fit neatly into China's urbanization plan.

Roach uses the Pudong district of Shanghai as an example of a place that was built, stood empty for a while, and then filled up, the message being other empty cities like Ordos just need time. It's important to remember that 1. Pudong was built in the 1990s, before China had even entered the WTO and was on the cusp of more than a decade of double-digit GDP growth. China's economy today is very different. It's slowing down and China's economic planners are taking the first steps to rebalance the economy from one built on investment-led growth to one built on consumer growth. That's not an easy transition to make, especially for an economy of this size, and it's going to require years of slower economic growth. 2. Pudong is in Shanghai, which is strategically located and is home to one of the world's largest ports. Ordos is in the middle of the desert and is running out of groundwater. If it's running out of groundwater while it sits largely empty, how could it survive if suddenly full?

If all of these ghost cities and ghost suburbs were part of a master plan hatched in Beijing by the central government, I'd imagine we'd see more affordable housing, as that's what is needed in China. Instead, most of the housing that's been built in these empty districts are luxury condos and villas. I have a hard time believing people will eventually move into these empty complexes in the next five years, especially in the scenario of a cooling economy. The other thing to keep in mind is that many of this new housing isn't built well, and it's hard to imagine them retaining their value over the time it may take for China's economy to return to its glory days. I think another danger is that once housing prices begin to plummet – which we are already seeing initial signs of in second tier cities in China – it'll devastate the financial stability of cities like Ordos. 

I think it's important to remember, too, that the ghost city phenomenon in China is partially due to how local governments are forced to finance themselves. Local governments in China are in a perpetual cash squeeze because they have to hand over a bulk of their tax revenue to the central government and because the central government often orders localities to build all sorts of infrastructure projects but Beijing often neglects to help with funding. Because the Party owns all of the land in China, local governments solve their funding problems by seizing land from their poorest residents, giving them a paltry sum in return, and then they sell the land to developers, essentially flipping real estate on a massive scale. Of course this has the added benefit of raising GDP figures, increasing the chance that local leaders will be promoted within the Party.

BI: Do you see more Chinese ghost cities propping up? Is it possible that some ghost cities are worse than others?

RS: I think each ghost city/ghost suburb should be treated differently – each of them has its own unique background and circumstances. Some of them will survive – we've already seen that happen in places like Zhengzhou and even in some of the exurbs of Shanghai that have filled out – but many won't. I was talking with Arthur Kroeber at GK Dragonomics a couple of months ago, in my mind one of the best experts on China's economy, and he was telling me about the city of Guiyang and how the province it belongs to, Guizhou, has an 80% debt-to-GDP ratio, which is incredibly dangerous. 

Arthur's usually pretty bullish on China's prospects, but he threw his optimism out the window when talking about the empty suburbs of that city, where hundreds of thousands of apartments sit, empty, while the largely mountainous province continues to plod along as one of China's poorest. The FT's (moving to The Economist soon) Simon Rabinovitch did a great story about all of Guiyang's empty housing, and what's happened there looks pretty scary. 

I think whether we see more ghost cities popping up depends on whether the central government is serious about promises to overhaul the GDP-based local official evaluation system and the way that local governments finance themselves.

BI: What's the most bizarre experience you've had in China's ghost cities?

RS: My first morning in Kangbashi, I woke up and walked through the empty hotel lobby to take a look outside onto the public square. There wasn't a soul in sight, and the first birds of spring were singing outside. The only other sound was Muzak pumping through the speakers from the hotel. As I looked around for any signs of life, I suddenly recognized the song. It was a Chinese version of Simon and Garfunkel's "Sound of Silence" played with a Chinese erhu.

China's most famous ghost cities

Malta Boat Deliberately Sunk 'Leaving 500 Migrants Dead' - What's the Solution?

Maltese authorities have launched naval missions to find and rescue migrants in trouble

About 500 migrants are feared dead after their ship was rammed by another boat near Malta last week, a migration body said.

Two Palestinian survivors told the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) that the boat had been intentionally sunk by traffickers.

They said the boat had left Damietta in Egypt in early September.

The IOM says that more than 2,500 people are now believed to have drowned in the Mediterranean this year.

News of the sinking near Malta emerged as another vessel carrying 250 people sank off the coast of Libya.

Over 200 people are feared to have drowned in that incident. Is it possible they are talking about the same sinking? See map below.

'Violent confrontation'
IOM spokeswoman Christiane Berthiaume said that the two survivors from the Malta sinking were rescued on Thursday, the day after their boat sank.

They said traffickers rammed the boat after a "violent confrontation" on board. The IOM said there were nine known survivors in total.

The boat had been carrying Syrians, Palestinians, Egyptians and Sudanese, the survivors said.

Major migrant boat tragedies:
March 2009: More than 200 African migrants drown after their boat sank off the coast of Libya
October 2013: 366 people, mostly Eritrean, die when their boat catches fire and sinks near Lampedusa
August 2014: Around 170 feared dead after another boat sinks off Libya

Map showing approximate location of ship sinking

The passengers, who included women and children, were reportedly told to move to a smaller, less safe boat. When they refused, the traffickers sank the larger vessel, the eyewitnesses said.

The Maltese authorities have not yet commented on the incident.

The UN says more than 130,000 migrants have arrived in Europe by sea this year, compared with 80,000 last year. Italy has received more than 118,000 migrants, the UN said.

Many attempt to cross from North Africa and the Middle East in unsafe and overcrowded vessels.

The UN's Andrej Mahecic told the BBC that more than half of those arriving by boat were refugees from Syria and Eritrea.

Eritreans and Somalians who attempt the journey to Europe have first the difficult task of crossing the Sahara Desert. Samson Kidane was one such refugee: "I still can't believe it when I think about the Sahara," said Samson Kidane, an Eritrean who is now a refugee in Switzerland.

"It was so difficult to cross. We were more than 30 people in a small automobile, and later we were in a container, more than 120 people for 24 hours."

Eritrea has forced military conscription for an unlimited time period. Everyone must join the military without knowing when, or if, they will be able to get out.

After crossing the Sahara, which cost each man more than $1,000 (£621; 735 euros), he and his friends had to find what he calls a "businessman" to get them across the Mediterranean.

Samson Kidane

"If you pay the money for the journey, the businessman sometimes disappears with the money," he said.

In the end his trafficker took another $1,200 from each member of the group, and organised five small boats, each carrying around 30 people.

After 53 hours at sea, Mr Kidane arrived in Italy. But only two boats arrived. Three had sunk, one of them carrying his best friend.

Until June of this year, Switzerland accepted avoidance of Eritrea's military service as a valid reason for claiming asylum, and the country now has one of Europe's biggest communities of Eritrean refugees.

But Switzerland, like many European countries, no longer allows applications for asylum to be made at its embassies abroad, meaning that anyone wanting to make a claim must make their way, somehow, to Switzerland.


Human rights groups suggest Europe's asylum policies are a contributory factor to the regular boat tragedies in the Mediterranean.

They are right, of course, but the problem is much more complex than that. European countries (mostly Christian in name, at least, if not in practice) are receiving so many immigrants from Africa and Asia, most of whom are Islamic, that the whole culture of the countries are rapidly changing.

Who would have thought that you would have Muslim spires and the call to prayer ringing out in France or Holland even 50 years ago? France now has between 5 &10% Muslim population. The French heritage population is declining rapidly from lack of births as people choose to have smaller families, or no children at all. Meanwhile, the Muslims average about 8 children per family, consequently they are becoming a larger and larger portion of the population everyday.

Some towns and cities have more Muslims than any other demographic and so are able to elect Muslims to positions in local governments. Many people believe that within 2 generations France will be almost completely Muslim. At that point they can introduce Sharia, if not sooner.

What's happening in France is also happening in most other countries in Europe, though they are a generation or two behind France. While the good news is that most French Muslims don't actually practice their faith, you can be certain that the day will come when an alBaghdadi or Aubakar Shekau will emerge and suddenly they will find their faith, one way or another. Then all will be required to convert to Islam, leave France, or die. Can you imagine France without Frenchmen?

This is why Marine Le Pen is doing so well, because people are actually beginning to understand this. Left-leaning people cannot see it. Sweden just elected a left-wing government, so it's likely they will continue to receive Muslim immigrants for the next four years. At some point in the near future all of Europe will be electing right-wing governments hoping they can clean up the mess that the lefties made of their country, but it will be too late then. I hate to think of what will happen when they try.

So what's the solution? Russia and Germany (I think) require all immigrants to learn Russian, or German. Will that make a difference? Most EU countries have already begun to cut back on immigration, at least a little, but that won't slow the desperate attempts of Africans and Asians trying to get to Europe. 

The solution lies in the source of the problems. Many countries in Africa or Asia are so pathetically poor that people are selling their children because they can't afford to feed them, selling them as young as 4 years old to pimps. Why is that happening? Because the countries that have the money to help the economies of these third world countries are spending it on war or entertainment and are completely ignoring the plight of the desperately poor.

Industrialized countries have economically raped the third world and we have the responsibility to help them to recover. But, instead, you have financial pedophiles with their hedge funds driving countries like Argentina into bankruptcy with the help of the US courts.

Multinational companies need to look beyond their short-sighted greed and invest in the third world. It will pay off in the long-term and will help stabilize politically volatile countries. Maybe then  people will want to stay home.