Iran’s Free Pass on Hijacking Cargo Ships

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Members of the U.S. Congress insist on reviewing any agreement with Iran before it takes effect, largely over Israeli concerns shared by many in Congress over Iran’s nuclear capabilities.

Zarif said Tehran does not want “to get bogged down into the domestic procedures of the United States” and was negotiating with the government.

He also said Iran was committed to maintaining freedom of navigation in the Gulf in the aftermath of the seizure of a commercial ship by Iranian forces on Tuesday. “For us, freedom of navigation in the Persian Gulf is a must,” he said. More here.

A few days ago, Iran seized a cargo ship. The U.S. has no plan nor responsibility to free the ship as told by the U.S. State Department. The ship is owned by the United States by flies a Marshall Island flag. There is more intrigue.

Here’s Why Iran’s Seizure of a Cargo Ship Is So Odd, and Disturbing

While Revolutionary Guard boats often harass passing vessels, the capture of the MV Maersk Tigris appears to be something new:

No one knows why Iranian military forces seized a 52,000-ton container ship in the Strait of Hormuz, and that’s worrying. Nor is it clear what the U.S. Navy or anyone else can do about it.

The strait is one of the world’s great maritime chokepoints; among other cargo, nearly 20 percent of the world’s annual supply of crude oil passes through its 6-mile-wide shipping channel. From time to time, Iran threatens to close the strait to shipping, though any such move would be vigorously contested by the United States and other countries, and it’s doubtful that the passage would remain closed for long. Still, news about maritime threats in the strait can send tremors through global markets.

The MV Maersk Tigris — a brand-new cargo ship built to carry more than 5,400 standard shipping containers — was heading westward through the strait in Iranian territorial waters on Tuesday, according to Pentagon spokesman Col. Steve Warren. It was approached by several patrol vessels of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy, or IRGCN, the maritime arm of the paramilitary unit that is generally tasked with “preserving the Islamic revolution.”

So far, nothing terribly unusual. The IRGCN, assigned to patrol the Gulf, routinely sends boats to shadow — some say “harass” — vessels of other nationalities as they transit the strait. Just three days ago, CNN reported, four IRGCN boats surrounded the U.S.-flagged Maersk Kensington in the Strait of Hormuz and followed it closely for some time. The U.S. Fifth Fleet subsequently issued a notice to mariners.

What happened next to the MV Maersk Tigris, however, was quite out of the ordinary.

“The master was contacted and directed to proceed further into Iranian territorial waters,” said Warren. “He declined and one of the IRGCN craft fired shots across the bridge of the Maersk Tigris. The master complied with the Iranian demand and proceeded into Iranian waters in the vicinity of Larak Island.”

William Watson, a maritime consultant based in Washington, D.C., called the situation “very strange and peculiar.”

Iran, which claims the entire strait as its territorial waters, might legally board a vessel if it deviated substantially toward the Iranian coast, Watson said. But ships moving normally through the strait have the right of innocent passage, a right routinely and firmly asserted by U.S. warships, among thousands of other vessels.

Via its Fars News Agency, the Iranian government said, “The ship is a trade vessel and has been seized by the Iranian navy at the request of Iran’s Ports and Maritime Organization…The ship was seized after a relevant court order was issued for its confiscation.” The article said the IPMO had monetary differences with the ship owner.

Watson found this mystifying. If someone has a financial claim against a vessel’s owners, the claimant can “arrest” the vessel, or hold it until the dispute is resolved. But he added that in his decades of watching the world’s maritime trade, he’d never heard of such a thing done on the high seas. Arrests happen in port or at anchor, he said.

Soon after the container ship encountered the IRGCN boats, it sent a distress signal. The U.S. Navy responded by dispatching a guided missile destroyer, the USS Farragut, to have a look. As well, it sent a maritime patrol aircraft (the Navy has two kinds, the propellor-driven P-3 Orion and the jet-powered P-8 Poseidon).

It’s unclear what the Navy might do from here. The U.S. can act forcefully to protect ships under U.S. flag, and generally must lay off when a vessel is sailing under some other country’s banner. The Maersk Tigris is a bit in the middle; it flies the flag of the Marshall Islands, which in the wake of World War II placed itself under the military protection of the United States.

“NAVCENT [U.S. Naval Forces, Central Command] is communicating with representatives of the shipping company and we continue to monitor the situation,” Warren said. “According to information received from the vessel’s operators, there are no Americans aboard.”

The incident comes just days after the U.S. Navy dispatched an aircraft carrier and escort to ward off Iranian ships headed for the civil-war-wracked country of Yemen, and amid tense and ongoing negotiations surrounding the framework nuclear deal between Iran and other nations. It is also part of a long history of naval confrontations between the U.S. and Iranian forces; most dramatically, the daylong naval battle in 1988 in which the U.S. retaliated for the mining of the USS Samuel B. Roberts by sinking two Iranian warships and damaging other assets.

Update (4/29): The day after the seizure, Maersk officials told Reuters they still did not know why their ship had been taken, and that they were working with Danish diplomats to learn more. The world’s largest shipping company, Maersk is based in Copenhagen.

Update 2 (4/29): Via the government’s IRNA news agency, Iran added a bit to its explanation for the seizure, saying that “the decree was issued upon a complaint lodged by a private company named ‘Pars-Talaeeyeh Oil Products Company’ against MAERSK Shipping Line. The case passed its legal proceedings and finally MAERSK was sentenced to pay financial damages….The [Navigation and Ports Organization] underlined that the issue is merely a legal case and has nothing to do with political issues.”

Update 3 (4/29): The website MarineTraffic produced this video showing the course of the MV Maersk Tigris before, during, and after its interception.

Now there are talks with the Marshall Islands about future interceptions. Officials from the United States and the Marshall Islands are discussing “the way ahead” after Iranian patrol boats forcibly diverted a cargo ship flying a Marshall Islands flag into an anchorage in Iranian waters, the Pentagon said on Wednesday.

A US Navy destroyer, the Farragut, and three coastal patrol ships, the Thunderbolt, Firebolt and Typhoon, were operating in the vicinity of the Strait of Hormuz conducting maritime security operations following the detention of the cargo ship, the MV Maersk Tigris, the Pentagon said.

 

Veterans Caught in the Middle of DC Politics

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FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. — A year after Americans recoiled at new revelations that sick veterans were getting sicker while languishing on waiting lists – and months after the Department of Veterans Affairs instituted major reforms – government data shows that the number of patients facing long waits at VA facilities has not dropped at all.

No one expected that the VA mess could be fixed overnight. But The Associated Press has found that since the summer, the number of medical appointments delayed 30 to 90 days has largely stayed flat. The number of appointments that take longer than 90 days to complete has nearly doubled. *** Last month, Veterans Affairs Secretary Bob McDonald on Friday released the names of members serving on a new panel intended to improve VA services and help in long-range reform planning.

The committee members bring together a range of experiences and specialties from the private sector, state government, health care, academia and veterans organizations.

“The collective wisdom of our committee members is invaluable and each of them understands that VA must improve customer service and focus the Department on the needs of our Veterans. They are dedicated to that mission and I am grateful for their principled service to our Veterans,” McDonald said.

*** Simply put, there is no improvement at the VA and to date there are no viable solutions except to throw money at it each year, where discretionary spending appears to go without oversight. That spending is also in the billions. The VA budget in 2014 was $153 billion, in 2015 it is $140 billion and the requested budget for 2016 is $168 billion with $70.2 in discretionary funds. All the while the number of overdue claims still hovers at 600,000. Navigating the Veterans Administration for a veteran is a Herculean task and for the most part impossible.

So, the normal Congressional process is to take political postured footing and then hear Barack Obama put in his ever so common veto threat. Sadly, the veterans are as always caught in the middle. Having a real accounting of spent funds, wasted funds and lost funds is a prudent objective which would be forced with smart budget planning.

House Dems bolster Obama veto threat

Bolstering a White House veto threat, House Democrats on Wednesday began lining up against a Republican bill funding the Veterans Affairs Department next year.

“I won’t support it,” Rep. Joseph Crowley (N.Y.), vice chairman of the Democratic Caucus, said Wednesday, “and I don’t believe our Caucus will support that, either.” Addressing the Democrats at a closed-door caucus meeting in the Capitol Wednesday, VA Secretary Robert McDonald warned the lawmakers that the GOP’s $77 billion bill funding the department and military construction projects in fiscal 2016 falls short of the resources needed to provide health and other services to the nation’s veterans.

Relaying McDonald’s message, Rep. Xavier Becerra (Calif.), chairman of the Democratic Caucus, said the GOP’s bill would scale back health benefits for roughly 70,000 veterans, while also denying funds for medical research, education and veterans’ cemeteries.

“The secretary came and sent a very strong message, something we rarely hear: ‘Please don’t let this funding bill become law, if you care about our veterans. We must do better for them,'” Becerra said.

Passed with bipartisan support by the House Appropriations Committee last week, the bill provides a 5.6 percent increase for the VA over 2015 levels, but falls more than $1 billion shy of the figure President Obama had included in his 2016 budget request.

Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) hailed the measure as “a balanced, thorough bill that will help improve the quality of life … [and] address the current and future needs of our veterans.”

The Democratic leaders see it differently, accusing the Republicans of adhering to spending levels dictated by the “incoherent” sequester law at the expense of veterans.

“We should not use the excuse — anyone in Congress — that sequester made you do this,” Becerra said. “If we divest in the Veterans Administration for something as incoherent as a bad law … then we’re doing injustice and disservice to our veterans.”

Scheduled for a floor vote Wednesday evening, the VA funding bill is expected to pass with overwhelming Republican support.

But the White House on Tuesday issued a statement threatening to veto the measure, saying it “fails” to fund building upgrades on military bases and expansions to medical facilities used by veterans.

The staunch opposition from leading Democrats suggests the president’s House allies would be able to sustain a veto if GOP leaders passed the bill and attempted to override the president.

 

 

Will Hillary Blame Lois Lerner?

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Trickle down or rather trickle out to someone else. Hillary and the Foundation insider operatives are likely in a war room concocting damage control and a blame agenda. Could Lois Lerner at the IRS be in their target sites?

 

The IRS cant be blamed for book deals and speaking fees arranged through the State Department. Blame cannot go to Lois Lerner for 1100 non-recorded foreign donors to the Foundations unless, Lerner was told to look away. But, since the IRS Inspectetor General has successfully located even more of Lois Lerner’s emails, perhaps she does hold some blame and Hillary pointing fingers elsewhere may be a viable ploy.

‘Out-of-control family affair’: Experts question Clinton Foundation’s true charitable spending

The charity run by the Clintons has raised $2 billion since it was founded in 2001 — $144.3 million in 2013 alone — but only a small fraction of the take went to its “life-saving work,” according to analysts who monitor non-profits.

The Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation claims 88 percent of the money it raises goes to actual charity work, but experts who have looked at the books put the number at about 10 percent. The rest, they say, goes mostly to salaries, benefits, travel and fund-raising.

“That claim is demonstrably false, and it is false not according to some partisan spin on the numbers, but because the organization’s own tax filings contradict the claim,” said Sean Davis, co-founder of The Federalist, a conservative online magazine.

The foundation, originally called the Clinton Global Initiative, has come under close scrutiny as Hillary Clinton prepares for a presidential run. Revelations in the soon-to-be-released book, “Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich,” by Peter Schweizer, have spurred numerous media investigations into the relationship between Hillary Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State, the foundation’s solicitation of foreign money and the ex-president’s lucrative speaking engagements around the world.

“It sounds like another out-of-control family affair.”

– Reg Baker, CPA and board member of non profit organizations

Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon defended the charity’s work in Africa and elsewhere and said in a statement there isn’t “a shred of evidence” that Hillary Clinton did anything to benefit Clinton Foundation donors while in office.

The foundation raised $144.3 million – and spent $84.7 million in 2013 – allocating $8.8 million to grants for other organizations, Davis said. The Clinton Foundation’s own IRS tax filings show the organization spent $8.5 million, or 10 percent of all 2013 expenditures, on travel, and another $4.8 million — or 5.6 percent of all expenditures — on office supplies, Davis said, questioning whether plane tickets, hotel accommodations, ink cartridges and staplers “directly change lives.”

Organizations that rate charities on their effectiveness in spending donations on the causes they champion say gauging the Clinton Foundation is difficult, but they have raised flags.

CharityNavigator.org added the Clinton Foundation to its “watchlist,” noting the organization officials “had previously evaluated this organization, but have since determined that this charity’s atypical business model cannot be accurately captured in our current rating methodology.”

While maintaining its removal of The Clinton Foundation from its website is “neither a condemnation nor an endorsement of this charity,” the Clinton Foundation is one of only 23 charities on the watchlist.

Another charity rating organization, GiveWell, said the Clinton Health Access Initiative declined in November 2012 to participate in its review process, and hasn’t since. The Clinton Health Access Initiative in 2008 and 2009 acted as a drug distribution powerhouse, purchasing $226 million in prescription drugs at a discount to distribute worldwide, a practice ended by 2012.

In 2012, the Better Business Bureau reported the Clinton Foundation did not meet the standards of an accountable charity, failing on six counts, largely because of a lack of transparent financial reporting. According to the Better Business Bureau website, the charity is again under review and a new report will be released soon.

Some of the financial reporting can be messy to follow, in part because the Clintons created separate entities, such as the Clinton Health Access Initiative, the Haiti relief initiative, Clinton Global Initiative, the Clinton Presidential Center and the Clinton Climate Initiative.

While IRS filings show the Clintons do not receive a salary, compensation comes through other means, such as travel, speaking fees and consulting contracts.

As first noted by Politico, the organization’s 990 forms show travel costs for the Clinton Foundation more than doubled in 2013 to $8.448 million largely because of “extraordinary security and other requirements” for the Clintons.

Schweizer’s book explores one way the foundation brought in money from donors who had business before the State Department, Fox News Channel reported. The charity accepted millions of dollars from the head of Uranium One, and a firm promoting its stock, while the Russians sought approval from U.S. agencies, including the State Department, to take over the company. The deal had to be approved by the State Department headed by Hillary Clinton because the sale gave the Russians control of 20 percent of the uranium production in the U.S.

During negotiations, Uranium One’s chairman donated $2.3 million to the Clinton Foundation. Bill Clinton also reportedly received $500,000 from a Russian firm promoting the company’s stocks, for a speech in Moscow. None of these transactions appear in Clinton Foundation disclosures.

A separate investigation by government watchdog group Judicial Watch revealed Bill Clinton earned $48 million from 215 speeches he made while his wife headed the State Department, and State Department officials, who were charged with flagging conflicts and ethics concerns, did not object.

A Washington Post investigation revealed Bill Clinton’s earnings for speeches were closer to $100 million.

In another controversial deal, Canadian mining executive Stephen Dattels donated 2 million shares of the company Polo Resources to the Clinton Foundation, which the foundation did not disclose, and weeks later, America’s Bangladesh ambassador reportedly used political influence to convince the Bangladesh prime minister to approve open pit mining there, boosting Polo Resources’ profits, according to the Wall Street Journal.

“It seems like the Clinton Foundation operates as a slush fund for the Clintons,” Bill Allison, a senior fellow at the government watchdog group, Sunlight Foundation, told the New York Post.

Reg Baker, a certified public accountant who has offices in Hawaii and Las Vegas and has served on several non-profit boards, told FoxNews.com the foundation is not run like most charities.

“It sounds like another out-of-control family affair,” Baker said. “It is totally out of sync with charitable organizations’ best practices.”

The 2014 fundraising numbers for the Clinton Foundation have not been released publicly yet, but the amount raised is likely to increase.

In 2008, the Clinton Foundation raised $188.2 million, and that revenue spiked to $249 million in 2009. In 2010, while Hillary Clinton headed the State Department, the foundation’s revenue dropped to $140 million in 2010, $56.3 million in 2011, and $51.5 million in 2012. Since she’s returned, the foundation’s revenue jumped back up to $144.4 million, Davis noted.

After a barrage of investigative reports across a wide variety of media highlighting the foundation’s lack of transparency and disclosure, including during Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state, the Clinton Foundation announced last week it will amend its tax returns for the last five years.

 

Malik Shabazz Invitation to Honduras

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As the media in recent days has interviewed the militant agitators in Baltimore, the responses contain the same rhetoric of police abuses. The operatives in Baltimore that have incited the riots and destruction are made up of gang members, political combatants, thugs and criminals. Their collective call to action is to impose unrest in cities across the country in a measure and scripted operation using ‘PURGE’ as their symbolic ethos.

In a statement released Monday, Baltimore Police say they have “received credible information that members of various gangs including the Black Guerilla Family, Bloods and Crips have entered into a partnership to ’take-out’ law enforcement officers,” according to the statement.

Simply said, they are demanding a change to police tactics, recrafting laws and sentencing applications that are all under the cover of non-violent narcotic use and trafficking. Their mission is to establish NO-GO zones.

 

NO GO zones are pockets of neighborhoods in towns across the country that are self-imposed and in some cases even barricaded off from civil authorities, meaning off limits to police, fire and the application of investigations and law. There are many of these zones already across America.

 

So, we should tender an earnest invitation to Malik Shabazz, the former leader of the New Black Panthers and now founder of Black Lawyers for Justice to take his operation to Honduras. Shabazz is part of a collisional mission with other organizations such as Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, the Louis Farrakhan sect known as the Nation of Islam, where these and other militant anti-American operations collaborate. Honduras, Mexico, El Salvador, Ecuador, Nicaragua are but a handful of breeding grounds that well satisfy their objectives being ripe for their nefarious leadership.

In recent years, analysts and U.S. officials have expressed ongoing concerns about the increasing rates of violent crimes committed by drug traffickers, organized criminal groups, and gangs in Central America.1 Central American governments, the media, and some analysts have attributed a significant proportion of violent crime in that region to youth gangs or maras, many of which have ties to the United States. U.S. concerns about gangs have accelerated as the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), a particularly violent group with ties to Central America, has increased its presence and illicit activities in the United States.

 

Estimates of the overall number of gang members in Central America vary widely, with a top State Department official recently estimating that there may be 85,000 MS-13 and 18th Street gang members in the northern triangle countries (El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras). In 2012, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) estimated total MS-13 and M-18 membership in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras at a more modest 54,000 11 According to UNODC, in 2012 there are roughly 20,000 gang members in El Salvador, 12,000 in Honduras, and 22,000 in Guatemala. El Salvador has the highest concentration of gang members, with some 323 mareros (gang members) for every 100,000 citizens, double the level of Guatemala and Honduras. In comparison, in 2007, UNODC cited country membership totals of 10,500 in El Salvador, 36,000 in Honduras, and 14,000 in Guatemala.

 

Sharpton, Shabazz, Marc Lamont Hill (Morehouse College professor), Baltimore mayor Rawlings Blake and more of their ilk will find lawless paradise in Central and South America to their liking. They would have unfettered opportunities to rule those countries and create their own lawless empire that would include commerce, trade and trafficking. How sweet right?

Since there has been a change in leadership at the U.S. Department of Justice, where Eric Holder resigned and has been replaced by Loretta Lynch, the White House has driven the selective prosecution operation, Lynch will continue to apply this White House policy. The policy is titled “21st Century Policing”. The mayor of Baltimore, Rawlings-Blake is on that task force. This new policy from the White House is to re-tool the criminal justice system for the single benefit of criminals and places law enforcement into a permanent restrained condition.

 

None of this will result in a peaceful nation going forward. Inviting the criminal base to find a new area of operation may be the right solution and those criminal and militant soldiers operating in America can transfer with them. While hope is not a strategy, the facts remain the same with no cure in America without real leadership and the will to win our country back.

Muslim Brotherhood by the Missing Dollars

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The top leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood is found here. And last month, Morsi himself was sentenced to 20 years in Egypt. The United States has gifted Egypt more than $1 billion per year since 1987.

The Muslim Brotherhood, just a few years removed from its political ascendancy, once again finds itself outlawed. Many of its leaders remain imprisoned, including former president Mohamed Morsi. Egyptian authorities have formally designated it as a terrorist organization. The Brotherhood’s political party, the Freedom and Justice Party, has been dissolved by court order. Many former Brotherhood members are in exile, and the Egyptian government has accused the group of fomenting violence, which it denies. According to one article in Foreign Affairs, “The Brotherhood’s stubbornness—even in the face of such severe setbacks—is not particularly surprising. Far from being a ‘moderate’ or ‘pragmatic’ organization, as many optimistic analysts once described it, the Brotherhood is a deeply ideological, closed vanguard.

Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood has been accused of taking 10 billion Egyptian pounds (U.S. $1.5 billion) from the American government, according to claims by Egyptian lawyers.

An immediate investigation into the accusation was ordered by Prosecutor General Talaat Abdallah on Thursday.

The lawyers, Mohamed Ali Abd al-Wahab and Yasser Mohamed Sayab, filed the complaint against the Muslim Brotherhood for the allegedly illegal money transaction, Egypt’s private daily Al-Masry Al-Youm reported on Jan. 3.

Translated:

The National Coordinating Committee for the recovery of funds and assets of smuggled Egyptian, headed by Justice Minister, Saber archives Monday, regular meeting with Committee members, to operate to speed recovery.
The Committee discussed, during their regular meeting, follow-up to the legal and practical measures for the recovery of funds and assets of contraband for codes and systems Morsi, in coordination and cooperation with the organs concerned, under the rules of the international cooperation on measures and practical steps to recover the funds.

And the Committee on the recovery of funds, membership Advisor Yusuf Osman, Assistant Minister of Justice for graft, and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the unit for combating money laundering and terrorist financing, and a representative of the international and cultural cooperation at the Ministry of Justice, a representative of the public prosecutor and the Director of the public funds Investigation Department of the Ministry of the Interior, and a representative of the national security agency, and a representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and a representative of the administrative control authority, a representative of the Central Bank.

Statistical daily spotted  “witness ” Kuwait 17 companies financed terrorist groups in Kuwait, through decades of studies and consulting, and Government contracts and tenders for electronic parts worth 186 million, causing its exposure to losses exceeded 90% of the capital in the past 10 years, because of its focus on the financing of the international regulation of terrorist brotherhood, and personal interests.

These companies suffered losses exceeding 90% of the capital in the last 10 years because of its focus on the financing of the international regulation of terrorist brotherhood–suggests that many of the companies approached the disappearance from the scene, the brotherhood in the financing objectives of the citizens ‘ money to kill innocent people in neighboring States, and that funding for the brothers from Kuwait during the year 2011 amounted to 600 million, and in 2012 the corporate finance 450 million and in 2013 have turned through Turkey More than 350 million dinars.

The statistics confirmed that the 17 companies assets recorded a decline of up to 80% by last year’s financial results, due to loss of funds in the financing of the special interests of the community and those companies with financing terrorist groups by nbfcs, and transfer money through private companies, and a difficult tracking methods.

And companies that financed the Community Government bids and contracts from Kuwait and other neighboring countries, spearheaded by many known and calculated investment blocks, this was not the first case, reiterated these scenarios in Gulf States raised issues and is trapped by the provisions, as well as the companies that went bankrupt, and the 17 companies, Government and capital lost, leaving only the cries of small investors.

And petroleum investments, referring to the loss of investment in renewable energy technology fund, with $ 12 million from 2008 to 2013, 6 million dinars, while the real estate sector has seen successive losses in the same period amounted to 700 million dinars, raising question marks about the evolution of the finance and investment community hidden in many States. ***