Minneapolis’ ‘Little Mogadishu’ Sees 56 Percent Increase in Violent Crimes Caused by Somali Gangs

Anthony Gockowski

Violent crimes increased by more than 50 percent in 2018 in Minneapolis’ Cedar-Riverside neighborhood, nicknamed “little Mogadishu,” which authorities attribute to Somali gang activity in the area.

Buried in a recent Star Tribune article was the fact that violent crimes jumped from 54 in 2010 to 84 in 2018, an increase in roughly 56 percent. Authorities attribute the violence to rivalries between Somali gangs, such as the Somali Mafia, the Somali Outlaws, the Hot Boyz, and Madhibaan with Attitude, Alpha News reports.

According to a 2014 Southside Pride article, the Outlaws and Madhibaan with Attitude have a rivalry that stretches back years, and likely resulted in the murder of two Somali men in April 2014. That article notes that the summer of 2013 was a particularly bloody season for gang warfare, which produced at least 4 killings.

A 2013 CBS article detailed the involvement of the Outlaws, the Mafia, and another gang called the Lady Outlaws in a sex-trafficking ring that recruited and prostituted young girls, some of whom were under the age of 14, between 2000 and 2010. The ring was operated out of Minneapolis, Columbus, and Nashville, and resulted in the indictment of 30 individuals involved.

In 2008, the Minneapolis Police Department created a Somali liaison position to focus solely on addressing the issue. The department currently has 5 Somali-speaking officers to assist in outreach to the immigrant community. According an MPR report from the time, officers began to notice that Somali gangs were dividing themselves along the same clan lines of their war-torn country.

The issue first garnered national attention after a 2009 CBS News report titled “Rise of Somali Gangs Plagues Minneapolis,” though officers were still hesitant at the time to pin the crimes on Somali gang activity.

“It was all gang activity, totally, 100 percent,” Shukri Adan, a Somali community organizer, said of the murders of seven Somali men in a 10-month period. Adan was tasked with drafting a report for the City of Minneapolis in which he estimated that between 400 and 500 Somali men were involved in gangs.

“The police don’t want to say that but everybody else knows that,” he added.

The latest rise in violent crimes in the Cedar-Riverside area comes as a concern to many, considering that city leaders have started to invest in security upgrades and community-outreach programs. In May, for instance, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey announced that a high-rise apartment complex at the center of little Mogadishu would be receiving an $825,000 security upgrade, including fencing, key fobs, and numerous security cameras.

In December, the Minneapolis City Council voted to divert $43,000 from the Minneapolis Police Department to create a youth outreach team for the area, Minnesota Daily reports.

“Everybody’s gotten to the point where, hey, you know, we don’t need more police, we need more intervention,” one organizer in attendance said. Several businesses in the area have joined together to hire off-duty police officers to patrol the area, while others are donating food and beverages to hand out to youth roaming the streets.

The Star Tribune reports that the latest uptick in violent crimes is mostly due to a surge in robberies and assaults.

Poll: 1 in 5 Russians Want To Leave Their Country - Permanently

By Nicholas Sakelaris

The survey indicated that U.S. sanctions against Russia may be having an impact on where citizens want to live. File Photo by Yuri Gripas/UPI | License Photo

(UPI) -- A new survey Thursday showed that 20 percent of Russians want to leave their country permanently -- the highest number in more than a decade.

The survey added that more than twice that amount (44 percent) of citizens between the ages of 15 and 29 said they'd like to leave the country.

Pollster Gallup said the results may be troubling for the Kremlin because the country is already experiencing a population decline. The United Nations has said it expects Russia to lose 8 percent of its population by 2050. 

Gallup said President Vladimir Putin's job approval has had a strong effect on Russians' desire to migrate. 

Top destinations include countries in the European Union (40 percent) and North America (16 percent). They're most likely to name Germany and the United States if they name a specific destination.

Putin has made efforts to increase migration from other nations and encourage more births in Russia.

"Despite the government's efforts to encourage more births in Russia, even more births now will not solve the country's workforce shortfalls in the near future," Gallup said. "To that end, the country is starting to look outside its borders to shore up its declining population."

Another poll Thursday showed most Russians (62 percent) support the Kremlin's annexation of Crimea five years ago, but do not support an occupation of eastern Ukraine. The survey was conducted by Moscow's Levada Center and the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

The poll also found 58 percent believe Moscow's foreign policies have made the economy worse, while 64 percent said it made living standards worse.

Maybe if all the oligarchs weren't taking all the money and spending it in Europe, things would be much better in Russia. But, certainly, things would be better if NATO and western powers would stop the Russia-hysteria and unethical sanctions.

Corruption is Everywhere - In Thailand It Silences Political Opponents

Thai progressive party leader charged with sedition

By Sommer Brokaw

Thai Future Forward Party co-founder and leader Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit (C) talks to media

after meeting with police at the Pathumwan Police Station in Bangkok, Thailand, on Saturday.

Photo by EPA-EFE/Narong Sangnak

(UPI) -- Thailand's military junta filed a sedition charge Saturday against a 40-year-old progressive party leader.

The sedition charge is among three that Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit faces in connection with a pro-democracy rally he attended four years ago.

Since the sedition charge relates to national security, he will be tried in military court, which Thanathorn said he was slightly worried about.

Thanathorn also faces a charge of helping a suspect escape and a charge of assembling of more than 10 causing unrest. If convicted of all charges, he could serve up to nine years in prison, including seven years for the sedition charge alone.

The junta, called the National Council for Peace and Order, has ruled Thailand since a 2014 military coup forced the democratically elected government out.

Police allege Thanathorn "provided assistance" to a leader of demonstrators against the coup who violated the junta's ban on gatherings of more than five people.

Thanathorn, the billionaire leader of the youth-backed Future Forward Party, which he formed last year, said the complaint's timing, after his party tentatively came in third with 6.3 million votes in last month's contested elections, was not coincidental.

"We're convinced that this case is politically motivated," Thanathorn said.

The March 24 election was Thailand's first election in eight years and showed inconclusive results. With more than 90 percent of the vote counted, the pro-military party led with 7.59 million votes, and the populist party trailed closely behind with 7.12 million votes, and the FFP came in third.

Thanathorn's progressive policy ideas and use of social media has attracted youth to his campaign.

He has denied the charges and has a May 15 deadline to give written testimony to police.

He also faces a separate cybercrime charge over criticizing the Junta on Facebook in July. Thanathorn has denied the charge.

Prosecutors will decide on April 26 whether he will face trial for the cybercrime charge.

German ‘Rent Insanity’ Sparks Mass Tenant Protests, Expropriation Action

Another aspect of Merkel's open borders policy

for which Germany was completely unprepared!

FILE PHOTO: A protest against rising rents and gentrification in Berlin. ©REUTERS / Axel Schmidt

Germans in large cities are protesting on Saturday against what they see as the unfair influence of large landlords on the housing market. They want the biggest players undercut and their property expropriated.

In past years, German people living in larger cities saw a wave of gentrification and rising rent levels. Some of the tenants couldn’t keep up and had to move out, while others had to leave when owners of their homes decided to tear them down and build new, more expensive property, which could generate more profits.

The situation in Berlin was among the most acute, with rent doubling over a decade. Some attempts by the authorities to rein in the growth, like the so-called rent-break in 2015, were underwhelming.

For many Germans, there is also a political aspect to the problem. Some of the social housing that could have gone to citizens struggling to pay larger rent went to thousands of refugees, which the country had accepted. According to ZDF, nearly 55,000 refugees were living in Berlin in 2016, putting a bit of extra pressure on the housing market.

The anger and frustration of people affected by the housing boom in a negative way sparked a public protest movement against this “Mietwahnsinn,” or “rental insanity.” Some 25,000 activists are expected to show up on Saturday for the latest rally in the capital, with smaller events scheduled in cities like Munich, Cologne and Frankfurt.

The campaign behind it is called “Expropriate Deutsche Wohnen & Co,” named after one of the largest owners of rental property in the country. Deutsche Wohnen’s share of the Berlin market is about 6.5 percent, or 111,500 apartments. Protesters say it and other large private companies abuse their superior position to inflate prices and profit through speculation.

The protesters see the solution in a never-before-used Article 14 of the German constitution, which allows the forced transfer of private property into public ownership with due compensation – the national version of eminent domain. Under the plan, the shares of Deutsche Wohnen and about a dozen other large landlords with more than 3,000 apartments in their portfolio would be downsized to that number, with the excess transferred to a new public body for social housing.

The current goal for the campaign is to push their vision through a referendum. They need to collect 20,000 signatures within the next six months and a further 170,000 by February for the proposal to be put forward before the German Parliament, which would work on putting it into a law.

Critics of the plan say the campaign overestimates the influence that larger landlords have on the market. There will also be a hefty price tag for the public to pick if the proposed expropriation takes place. The estimates vary from €7.3 billion ($8.2 billion) to as much as €36 billion ($40.4 billion).

‘Security Risk & Lawbreaker’: German MP Says 70yo NATO Should Retire

Like I've been saying for a few years now...

German lawmaker Alexander Neu lambasted NATO for conducting aggressive wars and raking up defense spending, suggesting Germany should quit its military command, and the bloc be dissolved altogether.

NATO’s 70th birthday is “not a reason to celebrate, but rather an occasion to finally rethink it, before it’s too late,” Neu wrote in Die Freiheitsliebe blog on Thursday.

The lawmaker from the opposition Left Party slammed the US-led military bloc as an organization that poses “significant security risk to the world” and “systematically violates international law.”

NATO revealed its true colors when it waged an “aggressive war” against Yugoslavia without the UN’s approval, and carried out numerous interventions, which claimed the lives of “countless victims,” Neu argued.

He pointed out that last year NATO’s member states spent more than $1 trillion on defense, which is far more than the defense budgets of its rivals, China and Russia, combined.

And how much do you want to bet that most of it went to the USA?

The imperialist competition and the fear of losing economic

and ideological supremacy drive NATO towards more

rearmament and confrontation.

In order to avoid global escalation, the lawmaker proposed that Germany should leave the alliance’s “military structures,” and then NATO itself should be dissolved and replaced by a new “collective security system,” which would include Russia.

Berlin’s contribution to NATO has caused a rift with Washington in recent years, as President Donald Trump repeatedly accused Germany, along with other EU nations, of not spending its “fair share” on the bloc’s collective security. German officials rebuked the criticism, but admitted the country won’t reach NATO’s spending target until 2024.

Founded in 1949, NATO was primarily seen as a bulwark against the Soviet Bloc during the Cold War. The alliance continued its existence after the Soviet Union collapsed, and expanded eastwards, despite vehement protests from Moscow.

And despite promises from western leaders to Gorbachev before Glasnost.

I have been saying for years that NATO begins or threatens wars as a way of justifying its existence and for the purpose of arms sales. They are clearly making the world a more dangerous place with their Russia hysteria policy. NATO is far more evil than Russia will ever be.

Canada Now Dominates World Bank Corruption List, Thanks to SNC-Lavalin

Out of the more than 250 companies year to date on the World Bank's running list of firms blacklisted from bidding on its global projects under its fraud and corruption policy, 117 are from Canada — with SNC-Lavalin and its affiliates representing 115 of those entries

The next worst country is the USA with 44 and some of them are SNC-Lavalin associates

The risk of SNC-Lavalin being barred from bidding on Canadian Federal projects is threatening the probability of the Very Liberal Government being reelected this fall, and has already cost the government two of its best ministers, its top civil servant, and the Prime Minister's top adviser. It's also revealed the shallowness of the PM's claim to be a feminist and a friend to the Indigenous.

John Mahoney/Postmedia News files

Armina Ligaya, Financial Post

Canada’s corporate image isn’t looking so squeaky-clean in the World Bank’s books — all thanks to SNC-Lavalin.

”Corruption’s double standard:

It’s time to punish countries whose officials accept bribes” 

Out of the more than 250 companies year to date on the World Bank’s running list of firms blacklisted from bidding on its global projects under its fraud and corruption policy, 117 are from Canada — with SNC-Lavalin and its affiliates representing 115 of those entries, the World Bank said.

“As it stands today, the World Bank debarment list includes a high number of Canadian companies, the majority of which are affiliates to SNC Lavalin Inc.,” said the bank’s manager of investigations, James David Fielder.

“This is the outcome of a World Bank investigation relating the Padma Bridge project in Bangladesh where World Bank investigators closely cooperated with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in an effort to promote collective action against corruption.”

As a result of the misconduct found during the probe, the Montreal-based engineering and construction firm, and its affiliates as per World Bank policy, were debarred in April 2013 for 10 years, as part of a settlement with SNC-Lavalin. And in one fell swoop, 115 Canadian firms were blacklisted by the World Bank, making Canada seemingly look like the worst offending country.

It’s quite the jump from 2012, when no Canadian companies were barred.

The long list of debarments mainly stems from just one large Canadian firm, but it still prompted some headlines around the world to point to Canada as being home to the most corrupt companies in the world.

“It is a little surprising,” said Tim Coleman, a global investigations partner at law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer in New York. “Because you do expect that the companies that are going to be highest up on the list, are going to be companies that have a reputation of corruption. And Canada is not one of those countries.”

Overall, Canada had 119 total companies on the list (including two permanently debarred since 1999). United States had the second largest number, with 44 companies on the debarment list (among which are several SNC-Lavalin companies), and Indonesia came in third with 43.

SNC-Lavalin did not respond to a request for comment.

The World Bank has been stepping up its fraud investigations in recent years, with four times more debarments than in 2012, and compared to the past seven years combined, said Mr. Coleman.

Canadian firms may be at higher risk of being sanctioned by the World Bank, he added, because Canadian authorities have not been as aggressively enforcing its anti-corruption laws as its U.S. counterparts.

“The result of that is that Canadian companies may have been lulled into a false sense of security, because their own national authorities were not closely scrutinizing their global operations, that nobody else would either,” he said.

There were 89 SNC-Lavalin affiliates, however, that were instead given a conditional non-debarment by the World Bank for 10 years. This is essentially a probation of sorts that requires these companies to adhere to compliance standards, but are still allowed to bid on the World Bank’s development projects around the world.

These sanctions were handed down instead of debarment, in part, because these companies had come forward to the bank had demonstrated concrete steps towards anti-corruption practices, said a World Bank spokesperson.

That is a sign that SNC-Lavalin has begun taking compliance more seriously. said Milos Barutciski, Bennett Jones senior partner and co-chair of the firm’s international trade and investment practoce.

“The fact that it didn’t [debar] the whole group is also, I think, an indication of what I believe is that SNC-Lavalin, by the time it resolved the case last spring, had started to take the issues and the investigation seriously. I don’t think SNC’s then leadership, corporate and board, were taking the matter nearly as seriously two years ago.”

Billions in US Funds & Equipment Lost to ‘Out of Control’ Corruption in Afghanistan

FILE PHOTO: Afghan policemen and a US soldier patrol the town of Sar Howza in Paktika province.

© Reuters / Goran Tomasevic

A lack of accountability breeds corruption in Afghanistan but money is still funneled into the country, as a fall of its government would become a geopolitical disaster for the US, former Pentagon official Michael Maloof told RT.

Some seven billion dollars’ worth of equipment was stolen from Camp Kearney base in Paktika province in the east of the country, after it was handed to the Afghan forces by the US in 2014, provincial governor Mujib Rahman Samkanai told local media. The looters, he claimed, were “former governors, commanders, mayors, directors, parliament members.”

“It’s been an ongoing problem for years, in which billions of dollars, not only in military but in foreign aid, have been lost due to corruption in Afghanistan,” Maloof explained to RT. “It’s out of control. There’ve been a lot of efforts to try and stem this corruption, but it’s actually part of the culture [among the country’s elites].”

US hardware on both sides of the war is more common than you would believe.

The former Pentagon official said that “it started with money and now it came to the equipment,” which disappears without a trace and is then turned into cash by interested parties. In almost 100 percent of cases the US hardware ends up on the ‘black market’ where it’s purchased by terrorists, whom the Afghan and American forces are supposed to be fighting, he pointed out.

According to Maloof, the problem is that “once the equipment gets into the field then there’s no accountability for it. The Afghan forces may sell it off, even though sometimes it’s only on loan to them.”

Once it’s lost, there’s no effort to try and retrieve it on the part of the US side.

Billions in taxpayer money is lost every year, but “nobody does anything about it in the US government or in the Congress… It’s a continuous endless cycle of corruption not only on [the Afghani] part, but on our part too,” he said.

Washington can’t withdraw its forces from Afghanistan or cut off the funding because “in the view of the US that would be catastrophic from the geopolitical standpoint” if the Afghan government loses power to the Taliban. This is where “this level of tolerance to the corruption” comes from, he explained. However, despite all the money spent “the Taliban is only increasing its territory.”

Paktika Province, Afghanistan