An affordable price is probably the major benefit persuading people to buy drugs at www.americanbestpills.com. The cost of medications in Canadian drugstores is considerably lower than anywhere else simply because the medications here are oriented on international customers. In many cases, you will be able to cut your costs to a great extent and probably even save up a big fortune on your prescription drugs. What's more, pharmacies of Canada offer free-of-charge shipping, which is a convenient addition to all other benefits on offer. Cheap price is especially appealing to those users who are tight on a budget
Service Quality and Reputation
Although some believe that buying online is buying a pig in the poke, it is not. Canadian online pharmacies are excellent sources of information and are open for discussions. There one can read tons of users' feedback, where they share their experience of using a particular pharmacy, say what they like or do not like about the drugs and/or service. Reputable online pharmacy canadianrxon.com take this feedback into consideration and rely on it as a kind of expert advice, which helps them constantly improve they service and ensure that their clients buy safe and effective drugs. Last, but not least is their striving to attract professional doctors. As a result, users can directly contact a qualified doctor and ask whatever questions they have about a particular drug. Most likely, a doctor will ask several questions about the condition, for which the drug is going to be used. Based on this information, he or she will advise to use or not to use this medication.
The Justice Department on Monday unsealed an indictment against three Chinese nationals in connection with cyberhacks and the alleged theft of intellectual property of three companies, according to US officials briefed on the investigation.
But the Trump administration is stopping short of publicly confronting the Chinese government about its role in the breach. The hacks occurred during both the Obama and Trump administrations.
The charges being brought in Pittsburgh allege that the hackers stole intellectual property from several companies, including Trimble, a maker of navigation systems; Siemens, a German technology company with major operations in the US; and Moody’s Analytics.
US investigators have concluded that the three charged by the US attorney in Pittsburgh were working for a Chinese intelligence contractor, the sources briefed on the investigation say. But missing from court documents filed in the case is any explicit mention that the thefts were state-sponsored.
A 2015 deal between then-President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping prohibits the US and China from stealing intellectual property for the purpose of giving advantage to domestic companies.
In recent months some US intelligence agencies have concluded that China is breaking the agreement, sources briefed on the matter say. But there’s debate among intelligence officials about whether there’s sufficient evidence to publicly reveal the Chinese government’s role in the infractions, these people say.
Obama administration officials had touted the Obama-Xi agreement, as well as 2014 Justice Department charges against members of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army for commercial espionage, for reducing some of the Chinese cyberactivity against companies in the US.
But the 2015 Obama-Xi deal was met with skepticism inside the US agencies whose job it is to guard against Chinese cyberactivity targeting US companies. Some now say there was only a brief drop in the number of cyberspying incidents, if at all.
In the waning months of the Obama administration, intelligence officials briefed senior White House officials on information showing that the Chinese cyberattacks were back to levels previously seen, sources familiar with the matter told CNN. Early in the Trump administration, US intelligence officials briefed senior officials, including the President and vice president, as well as advisers Jared Kushner and Steve Bannon. More here.
Acting U.S. Attorney for Western Pennsylvania Soo C. Song charged Wu Yingzhuo, Dong Hao and Xia Lei with conspiracy to commit computer fraud and abuse, conspiracy to steal trade secrets, wire fraud and identity theft.
The most serious charge, wire fraud, carries a sentence of up 20 years in federal prison. Each conspiracy charge has a possible sentence of up to 10 years and the identity theft carries a sentence of up to two years.
The indictment alleged that Wu, Dong and Xia worked with Guangzhou Bo Yu Information Technology Company Limited, a Chinese cybersecurity firm in Guangzhou, but used their skills to launch attacks on corporations in the U.S.
Between 2011 and May 2017, the trio stole files containing documents and data pertaining to a new technology under development by Trimble, along with employee usernames and passwords and 407 gigabytes of proprietary data concerning Siemens’ energy, technology and transportation efforts, according to the indictment. The trio gained access to the internal email server at Moody’s Analytics and forwarded all emails sent to an “influential economist” working for the firm, the indictment stated. Those emails contained proprietary and confidential economic analyses, findings and opinions. The economist was not named in the indictment.
A Siemens spokesperson said that the company “rigorously” monitors and protects its infrastructure and continually detects and hunts for breaches. The company did not comment on the alleged breach by the Chinese hackers and declined to comment on internal security measures.
Michael Adler, a spokesman for Moody’s Analytics, said that to the company’s knowledge no confidential consumer data or other personal employee information was exposed in the alleged hack.
“We take information security very seriously and continuously review and enhance our cybersecurity defenses to safeguard the integrity of our data and systems,” Adler wrote in an email to the Tribune-Review.
Trimble, in a statement sent to the Trib, wrote that no client data was breached. The company concluded that the attack had no meaningful impact on its business.
Song, however, said the loss to the companies targeted was considerable.
“The fruit of these cyber intrusions and exfiltration of data represent a staggering amount of dollars and hours lost to the companies,” Song said.
Wu, Dong and Xia used “spearphish” emails to gain access to computers, spread malware to infect networks and covered their tracks by exploiting other computers known as “hop points.”
Hop points allow users to hide their identities and locations by routing themselves through third-party computer networks.
“But there were missteps that led our investigators right to them,” said FBI Special Agent in Charge Bob Johnson of the Pittsburgh office.
Johnson would not elaborate on the missteps the accused hackers took, claiming doing so could jeopardize future investigations.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office led the investigation and was assisted by the FBI’s Pittsburgh Division, the Navy Criminal Investigative Service Cyber Operations Field Office and the Air Force Office of Special Investigations.
There was a time when the U.S. State Department along with associated agencies including USAID and the CIA would work to migrate countries from communism to democracies. After the rise of militant Islam and terror attacks around the world, countless gestures have been launched to destroy terror including of course war. Stable countries are now vulnerable and susceptible to radical migrant refugees and migrants.
Europe is in the worst condition and the United States is functioning in much the same manner. We constantly hear that the United States was built on immigrants and we invite legal immigration. Few conceive the notion that immigrants would not seek out America if there home countries were stable, democratic and functioning especially when the United States sends billions each year offshore for assistance and stability.
Meanwhile, America continues to budget and appropriate funds for migrants and refugees in the United States and more coming.
FY 2017 Notice of Funding Opportunity for Reception and Placement Program
Funding Procedures
Under current funding procedures, each agency with which the Bureau enters into a Cooperative Agreement (CA) is provided $2,025 for each refugee it sponsors who arrives in the United States during the period of the CA and is verified to have been placed and assisted by the agency. The funding is intended to supplement private resources available to the applicant and may be used at the local affiliates at which refugees are resettled and only for the direct benefit of refugees and for the delivery of services to refugees in accordance with program requirements as described in the CA. In addition, the Bureau funds national R&P Program management costs according to separately negotiated and approved budgets based on the applicant’s sponsorship capacity.
The annual ceiling for refugee admissions will be established by the President following consultations with the Congress towards the end of FY 2016. The FY 2017 appropriation and refugee ceiling have not yet been determined. For planning purposes, applicants should use the following refugee admissions projections as a baseline, although they may not necessarily be the regional or total ceilings that will be set by the President for FY 2017. Projections by region are as follows:
Africa — 30,000
East Asia — 12,000
Europe and Central Asia — 5,000
Latin America and the Caribbean — 5,000
Near East and South Asia — 44,000
Unallocated Reserve — 4,000
In addition, applicants should include 7,000 Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) recipients in their planning.
As in previous years, applicants should base their placement plans provided to PRM in response to this notice of funding opportunity on the capacity of their network of local affiliates, which will have consulted with resettlement partners in their communities in order to ensure that the placement plans are reasonable and appropriate. Should the FY 2017 Presidential Determination and appropriation processes result in ceilings that are different from the total capacity that has been proposed by all approved applicants, the Bureau will work with approved applicants, as necessary, to develop a revised plan, as it has in previous years. If you can stand it, continue the stipulations and grant procedures here.
***
It has become a cottage industry with almost zero checks and balances and your tax dollars? Well glad you asked. Check it:
Requirements to resettle refugees
To be selected as an R&P program agency, a non-governmental organization must apply to the PRM, which stipulates they meet three requirements:
1. Applicants must be “well-established social service providers with demonstrated case management expertise and experience managing a network of affiliates that provide reception and placement or similar services to refugees or other migrant populations in the United States;
2. (they must) have been in operation for at least three full years in non-profit status;
3. and document the availability of private financial resources to contribute to the program” (FY 2012 Funding Opportunity Announcement for Reception and Placement Program).
How it works
Each agency enters into a Cooperative Agreement (CA) with the PRM and is provided $1800 per refugee it sponsors who arrives in the U.S. during the period of the CA. Resettlement agencies have voluntary agreements with the Office of Refugee Resettlement within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (US DHHS). The resettlement agencies generally receive seven to ten days notice prior to the arrival of a refugee so that they can assign a case manager, find housing, furniture, and purchase necessary household items. If the refugee has a relative or other tie already living in the U.S. (called an “anchor”), the resettlement agency usually establishes an agreement before the refugees arrive to determine the role the relative or tie will have in assisting the newly arrived refugee in accessing core services.
Service period & basic services
The R&P service period is thirty days long, but can be extended to up to ninety days if more time is necessary to complete delivery of R&P services, although some service agencies allow extensions of assistance based on a client’s needs. Basic support consists of the provision of:
1. Decent, safe, sanitary, and affordable housing
2. Essential furnishings
3. Appropriate food and food allowances
4. Necessary clothing
5. Assistance in applying for social security cards
6. Assistance in registering children in school
7. Transportation to job interviews and job training
8. At least two home visits
9. An initial housing orientation visit by a designated R&P representative or case manager
10. Assistance in obtaining health screening and mental health services
11. Obtaining employment services
12. Obtaining appropriate benefits
13. Referrals to social service programs
14. Enrollment in English as a Second Language instruction.
15. Pre-arrival processing & reception planning
16. Airport pickup
17. Hot meal on night of arrival
18. General case management
19. Development and implementation of a resettlement plan
20. Cultural orientation classes
21. Employment assessment and possible enrollment in UST’s employment program
22. Referrals to UST internal programs
23. Advocacy within government and social services agencies
24. Coordination of community volunteers that provide additional adjustment assistance
25. Follow up and basic needs support
If refugees are still in need of assistance after this 30-90 day period, they can seek aid from public benefit programs for up to seven years. Refugees retain their status as such for one year, and then are considered permanent residents for four years. After that, they can apply for U.S. citizenship.
Other services listed on our website are also accessible to our clients. Some services are subject to office location.
While much of the global hacking came to a scandal status in 2015-16, the Russian ‘Fancy Bear’ activity goes back to at least 2008. The FBI is an investigative wing and works in collaboration with foreign intelligence and outside cyber experts. For official warnings to be provided to U.S. government agencies, contractors, media or political operations, the FBI will generally make an official visit to affected entities to gather evidence. The NSA, Cyber Command and the DHS all have cyber experts that track and work to make accurate attributions of the hackers.
The Department of Homeland Security is generally the agency to make official warnings. The Associated Press gathered independent cyber experts to perform an independent study and is ready to blame the FBI for not going far enough in warnings.
When it came to the Clinton presidential campaign hack, the FBI made several attempts to officials there and were met with disdain and distrust. The FBI wanted copies of the ‘log-in’ files for evidence and were denied.
In the absence of any official warning, some of those contacted by AP brushed off the idea that they were taken in by a foreign power’s intelligence service.
“I don’t open anything I don’t recognize,” said Joseph Barnard, who headed the personnel recovery branch of the Air Force’s Air Combat Command.
That may well be true of Barnard; Secureworks’ data suggests he never clicked the malicious link sent to him in June 2015. But it isn’t true of everyone.
An AP analysis of the data suggests that out of 312 U.S. military and government figures targeted by Fancy Bear, 131 clicked the links sent to them. That could mean that as many as 2 in 5 came perilously close to handing over their passwords.
It’s not clear how many gave up their credentials in the end or what the hackers may have acquired.
Some of those accounts hold emails that go back years, when even many of the retired officials still occupied sensitive posts.
Overwhelmingly, interviewees told AP they kept classified material out of their Gmail inboxes, but intelligence experts said Russian spies could use personal correspondence as a springboard for further hacking, recruitment or even blackmail.
“You start to have information you might be able to leverage against that person,” said Sina Beaghley, a researcher at the RAND Corp. who served on the NSC until 2014.
In the few cases where the FBI did warn targets, they were sometimes left little wiser about what was going on or what to do.
Rob “Butch” Bracknell, a 20-year military veteran who works as a NATO lawyer in Norfolk, Virginia, said an FBI agent visited him about a year ago to examine his emails and warn him that a “foreign actor” was trying to break into his account.
“He was real cloak-and-dagger about it,” Bracknell said. “He came here to my work, wrote in his little notebook and away he went.”
Left to fend for themselves, some targets have been improvising their cybersecurity.
Retired Gen. Roger A. Brady, who was responsible for American nuclear weapons in Europe as part of his past role as commander of the U.S. Air Force there, turned to Apple support this year when he noticed something suspicious on his computer. Hughes, a former DIA head, said he had his hard drive replaced by the “Geek Squad” at a Best Buy in Florida after his machine began behaving strangely. Keller, the former senior spy satellite official, said it was his son who told him his emails had been posted to the web after getting a Google alert in June 2016.
A former U.S. ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, who like many others was repeatedly targeted by Fancy Bear but has yet to receive any warning from the FBI, said the lackluster response risked something worse than last year’s parade of leaks.
“Our government needs to be taking greater responsibility to defend its citizens in both the physical and cyber worlds, now, before a cyberattack produces an even more catastrophic outcome than we have already experienced,” McFaul said. Read the full article here.
Every organization has a Chief Technology Officer, even small business has a ‘go-to’ person for issues. To be in denial there are any vulnerabilities is reckless and dangerous. To assume systems are adequately protected against cyber intrusions is also derelict in duty.
Fancy Bear is listed as APT 28. APT=Advanced Persistent Threat.
APT28 made at least two attempts to compromise Eastern European government organizations:
•
In a late 2013 incident, a FireEye device
deployed at an Eastern European Ministry of
Foreign Affairs detected APT28 malware in
the client’s network.
•
More recently, in August 2014 APT28 used a
lure (Figure 3) about hostilities surrounding a
Malaysia Airlines flight downed in Ukraine in
a probable attempt to compromise the Polish
government. A SOURFACE sample employed
in the same Malaysia Airlines lure was
referenced by a Polish computer security
company in a blog post.
The Polish security
company indicated that the sample was “sent
to the government,” presumably the Polish
government, given the company’s locations and visibility.
Additionally:
Other probable APT28 targets that we have
identified:
•
Norwegian Army (Forsvaret)
•
Government of Mexico
•
Chilean Military
•
Pakistani Navy
•
U.S. Defense Contractors
•
European Embassy in Iraq
•
Special Operations Forces Exhibition (SOFEX)
in Jordan
•
Defense Attaches in East Asia
•
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation
There is also NATO, the World Bank and military trade shows. Pure and simple, it is industrial espionage.
MALWARE
Evolves and Maintains Tools for Continued, Long-Term Use
•
Uses malware with flexible and lasting platforms
•
Constantly evolves malware samples for continued use
•
Malware is tailored to specific victims’ environments, and is designed to hamper reverse engineering efforts
•
Development in a formal code development environment
Various Data Theft Techniques
•
Backdoors using HTTP protocol
•
Backdoors using victim mail server
•
Local copying to defeat closed/air gapped networks
TARGETING
Georgia and the Caucasus
•
Ministry of Internal Affairs
•
Ministry of Defense
•
Journalist writing on Caucasus issues
•
Kavkaz Center
Eastern European Governments & Militaries
•
Polish Government
•
Hungarian Government
•
Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Eastern Europe
•
Baltic Host exercises
Security-related Organizations
•
NATO
•
OSCE
•
Defense attaches
•
Defense events and exhibitions
RUSSIAN ATTRIBUTES
Russian Language Indicators
•
Consistent use of Russian language in malware over a period of six years
•
Lure to journalist writing on Caucasus issues suggests APT28 understands both Russian and English
Malware Compile Times Correspond to Work Day in Moscow’s Time Zone
•
Consistent among APT28 samples with compile times from 2007 to 2014
•
The compile times align with the standard workday in the UTC + 4 time zone which includes major Russian cities such as Moscow and St. Petersburg
FireEye, is a non-government independent cyber agencies that has performed and continues to perform cyber investigations and attributions. There are others that do the same. To blame exclusively the FBI for lack of warnings is unfair.
Hacking conditions were especially common during the Obama administration and countless hearings have been held on The Hill, while still there is no cyber policy, legislation or real consequence. Remember too, it was the Obama administration that chose to do nothing with regard to Russia’s interference until after the election in November and then only in December did Obama expel several Russians part of diplomatic operations and those possibly working under cover including shuttering two dachas and one mission post in San Francisco.
Police in Mexico pulled over four men in a pickup truck near the city of Salamanca in Guanajuato state on October 20 and got a nasty surprise. Along with an AK-47 assault rifle, the men had in their possession an unmanned aerial vehicle fitted with a “large explosive device” and a remote detonator.
That’s right: a weaponized drone.
Police didn’t say whether they suspected the men of ties to drug cartels. But Guanajuato is currently contested by several drug gangs, including the Sinaloa cartel, Los Zetas, and Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación, or CJNG, according to Dr. Robert Bunker, a fellow with Small Wars Journal, a military trade publication.
ISIS set up factories in Iraq and Syria to modify mortar bombs—basically, small artillery shells—to fit on small drones. During intensive fighting in the Iraqi city of Mosul in February, ISIS’s drones were “the main problem” for coalition troops, Captain Ali, an Iraqi officer, told War Is Boring.
The cartels, for their part, have been using so-called “potato bombs”—hand-grenade-size improvised explosive devices—in attacks on each other and authorities. Bunker said the explosive the police found alongside the drone in Guanajuato is “consistent” with a potato bomb.
The cartels could also draw inspiration from online-retailer Amazon and its delivery drones. “As both Islamic State and Amazon have shown, small drones are an efficient way of carrying a payload to a target,” said Nick Waters, a former British Army officer and independent drone expert. “Whether that payload is your new book or several hundred grams of explosive is up to the sender.”
But don’t panic, Waters and other experts said. Drug cartels were plenty dangerous before they weaponized flying robots. Potato bomb-hauling drones might just give narcos more options for perpetrating crimes they are perfectly capable of pulling off some other way. “Considering their already impressive traditional capability, I think this will probably be another tool rather than a game-changing capability,” Waters said.
You should be “no more worried than you should be by cartels also using machine guns, car bombs, machetes, etc,” Singer said. More here.
Mexican cartels smuggle more drugs into the U.S. than any other criminal group, the federal Drug Enforcement Administration said in a new report.
The 2017 National Drug Threat Assessment released in October lists six cartels as having major influences across the country and Texas.
Cartels’ influence in Texas is far-reaching, affecting cities hundreds of miles from the state’s border with Mexico.
San Antonio is the only city in the state with a drug trade controlled by the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion, which deals mostly with methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin and marijuana, according to the DEA.
The Gulf Cartel has a hold on cities in Texas’ tip and coastal bend. McAllen, Brownsville, Corpus Christi, Galveston, Houston and Beaumont are impacted most by the Gulf Cartel which mostly brings marijuana and cocaine into the area, according to the DEA. Drugs smuggled through the Gulf Cartel are mostly brought in through the area between the Rio Grande Valley and South Padre Island.
Every week in Houston, a relative of a Gulf Cartel leader receives 100 kilograms of cocaine, according to the DEA.
Moving West, Los Zetas control two cities and the Juarez Cartel has a hold on Alpine, Midland, El Paso and Lubbock.
While the arrests of two Los Zetas leaders has weakened the cartel’s influence on Eagle Pass and Laredo, its presence is still felt because of members who have assumed control, bringing cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and marijuana into Texas.
The Sinaloa Cartel, formerly run by prison escape artist Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman,” is most found in Dallas, Lubbock and Fort Worth, according to the DEA.
The FY 2017 OCDETF Program Budget Request comprises 2,975 positions, 2,902 FTE,
and $522.135 million in funding for the Interagency Crime and Drug Enforcement (ICDE)
Appropriation, to be used for investigative and prosecutorial costs associated with OCDETF cases targeting high-level criminal drug and money laundering networks as well as priority transnational poly-crime organizations whose primary criminal activity may not necessarily be drug-related. Go here to read the full report.
When the price of oil at the barrel hovers in the range of $50.00, oil rich nations start to see red on the balance sheets due in part to U.S. fracking.
This too is a reason that Russia and Saudi Arabia are making some desperate decisions. While Russia has no intention of altering internal operations with regard to employment and consumption, the Saudi Kingdom has countless moving parts under consideration for a long term survival strategy especially with a rather new leadership in the order of Princes.
This is not a recent condition for the Saudi royals as it began with real attempts to control the outflow of money and playboy princes spending money globally including in fraudulent and illicit activities.
The kingdom has big plans for the future to compete and must remove all internal obstacles first to gain investment money.
Rhiayad has made a decision to no longer rely on oil for economic sustainability.
The future of Saudi Arabia is described here and is known as ‘Vision 2030‘.
It was once procedure to keep chaos in the Kingdom quiet, but not so much anymore.
King Salman’s sweep may have been foreshadowed two weeks ago, when Maan al-Sanea, a raffish Kuwaiti billionaire, was arrested at his home on the eastern coast of Saudi Arabia.
An exceedingly messy affair ensued. The head of the Gosaibi family accused Sanea of opening the bank—which was called the International Banking Corporation, or T.I.B.C.—without his consent, and of systematically defrauding the family and the bank’s customers. Corporate investigators subsequently uncovered what they believed was evidence of a scheme involving forged signatures and the issuing of fake loans. Lawyers for Sanea claimed in court that the Gosaibis knew what he was doing all along, but they never explained the signatures or loans the investigators had raised questions about.
The financial complexities of the case were daunting—in part because of the opacity of the Saudi legal system. The dispute between the Gosaibis and Sanea played out in separate lawsuits in the Cayman Islands, Switzerland, Bahrain, the U.A.E., and other legal jurisdictions around the world. Yet only one jurisdiction, Sanea’s lawyers claimed, truly mattered. “Our client’s position has always been that the substantive dispute between him and the al-Gosaibi family can be dealt with properly in Saudi Arabia,” they said. More details here.
*** Then there is the case of Prince Abdul Aziz bin Fahd. Is he dead or not? The Kingdom says no he only being detained. Others say hold on….this too appears to be about flaunting money in some cases…dark corners, other places globally. Some real fascinating details are here.
Saudi Arabia has some competitors for economic survival, those being Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait. Then there is of course Iran, an even more devilish enemy to Saudi Arabia in many cases than it is to Israel and the United States.
Saudi Arabia has been at war in Yemen due to the Iranian back Houthi rebels for a few years and still has to contend with Bahrain which too has a Shia majority, often inspired by Tehran as was seen in the 2011 Arab Spring protests.
Then there is Lebanon. While Lebanon does have a sizable Christian population, it is essentially controlled by Iran’s Hezbollah and too holds the largest number of refugees from the Syrian civil war. Lebanon’s Prime Minister took a trip to Washington DC and the Trump White House in July, likely to explain conditions in the country taking a tailspin. In early November, Prime Minister Hariri traveled then to Saudi Arabia, probably at the Kingdom’s demand and soon resigned. He is reported to still in in Rhiayad under consultation and protection as he feared for his life in Lebanon as it is reported. Hariri may be hold up at the Ritz Carlton along with the dozen other detained princes under a tight military security condition.
Iran is controlling Lebanon, Syria and Iraq and is working to do the same in Yemen. The Saudi Mission in the United Nations has justified a new blockade on Yemen by accusing Iran of “direct military aggression”, linking Iranians and Hezbollah to a Burkan H2 missile fired by Houthi rebels towards Riyadh airport and oil facilities, as stakes raised between regional rivals. Iran’s president Rouhani declared Saudi Arabia to stay out of the business in Lebanon.
So is a larger conflict looming? The tea leaves reveal that probability. So, if that is the case, the Kingdom needs all wayward princes out of the way including those in opposition to the modernization of the Kingdom and money will be an issue. $800 billion is on the line so far and rumored to be confiscated.
What is notable is Saudi Arabia issued a declaration directly after Prime Minister Hariri resigned for all Saudi citizens in Lebanon to leave Lebanon immediately as Bahrain has done the same.
So, with regard to funds. a Saudi attorney general said legal probe underway suggests at least $100 billion has been misused in corruption and embezzlement over several decades. 208 were part of the legal probe and have been released, while others are detained and more investigations continue.
So far: The UAE, particularly its most commercially prominent emirate Dubai, is one of the main places where wealthy Saudis park their money abroad. In addition to bank accounts, they buy luxury apartments and villas in Dubai and invest in the emirate’s volatile stock market.
Huge amounts of money may be at stake. Corruption has over the years siphoned off $800 billion from Saudi state revenues, an official at the Riyadh Chamber of Commerce and Industry has estimated; bankers believe much of it is held abroad, in countries including Switzerland and Britain.
ASSETS SOLD
Some wealthy Saudi individuals have been liquidating assets within Saudi Arabia, the UAE and other Gulf countries this week, apparently in an effort to move money out of the region and escape the crackdown, private bankers and fund managers said.
*** Whenever and wherever there is political unrest, Russia is always lurking. That is part in parcel why Russia was mentioned at the top of this article.
There is little doubt that Putin’s foreign policy centers on reviving Russia as a major international power, which seeks to undermine the global American alliance that has underwritten international security since the end of the Cold War.
Stretching across Europe, Asia and the Middle East, this alliance has continually thwarted Russia’s primary foreign policy ambitions. Seeking to break Russia free from America’s preeminence, Putin persistently employs tactics below the threshold of war to fracture the global system and artfully exploits the unintended consequences this inevitably creates.
Putin’s asymmetrical moves have sought to cast doubt on the credibility of American security guarantees in Eastern Europe and in the Baltic. And while alarm bells have sounded, Putin has shied away from direct military confrontation with NATO.
Putin has also now turned to a second front by exploiting the void left by U.S. retrenchment from the Middle East. The projection of Russian military power in Syria in the summer of 2015 ushered in a new era of expansion in the Arab world – particularly through arm sales and limited military involvement. In Moscow’s view, the Middle East is ripe for disruption, with lower risks of a direct confrontation with the United States.
Putin’s show of force unsurprisingly has found him new friends and new buyers. Regional powers are hedging against U.S. unpredictability and seeking out Russian benevolence. Furthering the sense of uncertainty is the lingering crisis between the Gulf Cooperation Council states and Qatar. While the Gulf sees uncertainty, Russia sees an opportunity to prey on their doubts.
The announced sale of the S-400 missile defense system to Riyadh during the October visit of King Salman to Moscow, the first Saudi monarch to visit Russia, is a further sign of the deepening role Moscow is playing in an area of the world where the U.S. has traditionally been predominant.
This is not the first time Putin has ventured into arm sales in the Middle East, a region that is typically dominated by the U.S. weapons industry. Previous sales of the S-300 have been delivered to Iran, while Turkey recently signed a deal with Moscow to acquire the S-400 as well. Furthermore, Bahrain and Qatar, the home to the U.S.’s Fifth Fleet and the Al Udeid military base respectively, have also expressed interest in acquiring the system, according to Russian media. Its acquisition, if completed, raises important implications for the U.S.’s strategic posture in the Gulf. The proliferation of such systems is certainly not in America’s interest.
The acquisition of the S-400 by Riyadh comes after the U.S. recently sold $15 billion worth of THAAD equipment to the Kingdom. This system will be the premier ballistic missile defense system in the Middle East, with the exception of Israel’s. But for its new air defense system, Saudi Arabia felt the need to turn to Russia.
Riyadh’s rapprochement with Moscow is a way to hedge against a more uncertain U.S. engagement and to gain some leverage in its relationship with Washington. While the U.S. has tried to assuage Saudi concerns about its own steadfastness in the region, Moscow has been able to sow enough doubt in Riyadh to undermine American efforts. Riyadh is careful to show that it won’t completely fall in line either with Washington or Moscow but will try to balance one relationship with the other. While the agreement to purchase the S-400 is a signal towards Washington, it is equally telling that the sale of the THAAD missile defense system was approved amidst Salman’s visit to Moscow. More here by Andrew Bowen.
Not even a crystal ball or a higher power can really sort all of this out…but now you have some facts giving rise to some clues and can make a better estimation….right?
