Spooky Dude Behind Migrants and Benefits

Posted on February 6, 2016February 6, 2016 by Denise Simon

United States Programs via Open Society Foundation, George Soros:

The Open Society Foundations’ U.S. Programs is committed to building a vibrant, inclusive, and more just society in the United States. Through grant making, the Soros Justice Fellowships, and a special reserve fund used as crises and unexpected opportunities arise, U.S. Programs seeks to promote full participation in the nation’s civic, political, and economic life—particularly for communities that are historically marginalized and vulnerable—and to ensure that the core institutions of civil society are effective and accountable to the public.

The work of U.S. Programs is organized around four central goals: a more inclusive and accountable American democracy; a fair criminal justice system; full political, economic, and civic participation of communities of color and immigrants; and equitable economic growth.

Among its priorities:

Justice

Working to end mass incarceration; making police departments more accountable to the communities they serve; challenging the death penalty; and replacing youth justice policies that stigmatize and suppress with those that safeguard the rights of children.

Drug Policy

Promoting policies that address drug use—and the health, mental health, and social needs it creates—within the context of communities rather than the justice system, and working to ensure access to comprehensive treatment.

Equality

Promoting fairness and equality for all people in the United States by removing barriers to full participation in economic, social, and civic life for marginalized communities; seeking to reduce the racial wealth gap and reform harsh school discipline policies that disproportionately impact children of color; working to improve life outcomes for boys and men of color; and changing the racial narrative in this country.

Democracy

Supporting high-quality journalism to help hold powerful institutions accountable; protecting the free flow of information through an internet accessible to all; reducing the undue influence of money in politics; expanding electoral participation and combat voter suppression; and advancing reforms safeguarding the independence of state courts.

Economic Advancement

Working to promote economic opportunity for all Americans, reduce income equality, and advance fair housing and lending policies.

National Security & Human Rights

Working to promote the rule of law, defend civil liberties and human rights, and combat Islamophobia in the face of overbroad or discriminatory U.S. counterterrorism policies and practices.

Philanthropy of Place

Testing ideas at the state and local level through our sole field office, the Open Society Institute–Baltimore, which focuses on drug addiction, over-reliance on incarceration, and obstacles that prevent youth from succeeding inside and out of the classroom, as well as through the Open Places Initiative, which promotes equality and improved civic participation in Buffalo, San Diego, and Puerto Rico.

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Countless pages here on who he gives grant money to.

Programs

George Soros: Open Society Foundation: International Migration Initiative

Through empowerment, policy change, and legal action, we target reforms that meaningfully improve the working and living conditions of migrants.

The International Migration Initiative seeks to address exploitation, discrimination and violence against migrants at every stage of their migration journey. Specifically, the initiative aims to increase protections for migrants in the Asia/Middle East and the Central America/Mexico corridors while improving policymaking and the governance of international migration.

Two unique aspects of the initiative’s approach amplify its impact: First, our focus on migration corridors means the initiative is active in both countries of origin and destination, and thus targets every stage of the migration journey. Second, we bridge advocacy and policy by drawing on the experience of grassroots organizations, while engaging with policymaker and political leaders. Through empowerment, policy change, and legal action, we target reforms that can meaningfully improve the working and living conditions of migrants.

The International Migration Initiative’s main areas of work are built around increasing protections for migrants and improving migration policymaking and the governance of international migration. Within these strategic priority areas, the initiative targets three overarching goals:

Deterring rights violations and increasing access to justice: The International Migration Initiative aims to demonstrably improve the working and living conditions of migrants by bringing about a measurable decline in acts of violence against them and reducing the incidence of forced labor. This requires the development of a broader, stronger network of organizations and practitioners engaged in advocacy. We are pursuing initiatives to increase access to justice by building capacity among legal practitioners so they can overcome legal and jurisdictional hurdles impeding migrants’ access to redress.

Empowering migrants: The initiative seeks to strengthen the ability of migrants to assert and defend their rights, primarily by increasing access to information. This involves improving the quality, coverage, and effectiveness of training and orientation seminars prior to departure and upon arrival in countries of employment. We also aim to create an enabling environment in which migrants can mobilize and make their voices heard through grassroots organizing, the development of associations and informal support networks, and the creation of migrant-run, community-based media.

Enhancing regional policymaking and dialogue: The initiative advances policy reform and the promulgation of best practices by enabling dialogue among key stakeholders, including among actors who might not otherwise come together. We also aim to build the evidence base necessary to inform these conversations and to deepen networks among policymakers, as well as between the state and civil society. In the long term, we aim to promote more inclusive, tolerant communities and a better-informed public in order to combat xenophobia and discrimination.

Hat tip to Michael

China’s Best Method of Industrial Espionage

Posted on February 5, 2016February 5, 2016 by Denise Simon

Obscure Chinese Firm Dives Into $22 Trillion U.S. Market

Bloomberg: When Cromwell Coulson heard that an obscure Chinese real estate firm had agreed to buy the Chicago Stock Exchange, he was shocked.

“My first reaction was, ‘Wow, that’s who they’re selling to?”’ said Coulson, the chief executive officer of OTC Markets Group Inc. in New York. “These new buyers have no connection to Chicago’s existing business. They’re completely disconnected from the current business of supporting the Chicago trading community. So wow, that’s out of left field.”

While the world has gotten used to seeing Chinese companies snap up overseas businesses, the purchase of a 134-year-old U.S. stock market by Chongqing Casin Enterprise Group — a little-known property and investment firm from southwestern China — raises a whole host of questions. For starters, why does a provincial Chinese business with no apparent ties to the securities industry have any interest in buying one of America’s smallest equity exchanges? And will U.S. regulators sign off?

So far, Casin Group’s intentions are unclear, with calls to the company’s Chongqing headquarters going unanswered on Friday. If the deal does pass muster with American regulators, it would mark the first-ever Chinese purchase of a U.S. equity exchange, giving Casin Group a foothold in a $22 trillion market where even the smallest bourses have room to grow if they can provide the best price for a stock at any given moment.

The Chicago Stock Exchange — a subsidiary of CHX Holdings Inc. — is minority-owned by a group including E*Trade Financial Corp., Bank of America Corp., Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co., according to the company. The minority shareholders are also selling their stake, Chicago Stock Exchange Chief Executive Officer John Kerin said in a phone interview.

The deal values the exchange at less than $100 million, according to a person familiar with the matter, who asked to not be identified because the terms weren’t disclosed publicly. Mark O’Connor, a spokesman for the exchange, declined to comment on the size of the transaction.

Overseas Shopping

Casin Group’s offer, announced on Friday in a statement from the Chicago exchange, comes amid an unprecedented overseas shopping spree by Chinese companies. Businesses from Asia’s largest economy have announced $70 billion of cross-border acquisitions and investments this year, on track to break last year’s record of $123 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

While many of those deals had obvious business rationales, the reasons for Casin Group’s bid are less clear. The company, founded in the 1990s through a privatization of state-owned assets, initially focused on developing real estate projects in Chongqing, before expanding into the environmental and financial industries. While the firm owns stakes in banks and insurers, it has no previous experience owning an exchange.

Chinese Growth

Lu Shengju, the majority owner and chairman of Casin Group, wants to help bring Chinese companies to U.S. markets, according to the statement from Chicago’s bourse.

“We have reviewed CHX’s plans to improve market share through new growth initiatives and fully support them,” Lu, a torch bearer during the Beijing Olympic games in 2008, said in the statement, which didn’t disclose terms of the deal. “Together, we have a unique opportunity to help develop financial markets in China over the longer term and to bring exciting Chinese growth companies to U.S. investors.”

The Chicago Stock Exchange could serve as a venue for Chinese companies to list, said Dale Rosenthal, a clinical assistant professor of finance at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

“Because they’re an exchange, they can list stock,” Rosenthal said. “It has the potential to raise Chicago’s profile in China.”

Casin Group is no stranger to investing in outside businesses, including overseas targets. Three years ago, the firm increased its stake in Shenzhen-listed Guoxing Property to 30 percent, becoming the biggest shareholder. Guoxing, now 60 percent owned by Casin Group, has soared 170 percent in the past two months, versus a 19 percent drop in the CSI 300 Index, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Casin Group bought a 25 percent stake in Singapore-based Great Eastern Life Assurance in 2013.

“It’s interesting to see the Chinese increase their footprint in the U.S.,” said Ramon Camacho, a principal at RSM US LLP, an audit, tax and consulting company based in Chicago. “These investors are looking for a platform to showcase and bring to market Chinese companies.”

The company’s bid for the Chicago bourse could face political opposition, with American regulators and politicians taking a skeptical approach toward foreign investments in industries deemed important to national interests. When Germany’s Deutsche Boerse AG wanted to buy the owner of the New York Stock Exchange in 2011, U.S. Senator Charles Schumer, a Democrat from New York, raised obstacles. The deal was finally scrapped on monopoly concerns.

Heavy Scrutiny

Some Chinese companies have come under heavy scrutiny as they tried to enter U.S. markets. Huawei Technologies Co., China’s largest phone-network equipment maker, was barred by the U.S. in 2011 from participating in building a nationwide emergency network.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission would have to approve the deal, because the exchange is a self-regulatory organization. The new owners will have to show they intend to follow all of the regulations imposed on stock exchanges, whose listing and trading rules also must be approved by the SEC.

Additionally, the takeover would probably be reviewed by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., said Anne Salladin, a lawyer at Stroock & Stroock & Lavan LLP in Washington. CFIUS, a panel of government officials led by the Treasury Department that examines purchases of American businesses by foreign investors, can recommend the president block transactions it believes compromise national security. It can also impose changes to address any concerns.

“It’s a Chinese investment, and it’s in a potentially sensitive sector: financial infrastructure,” Salladin said.

CFIUS has been closely scrutinizing purchases of American businesses by Chinese buyers. Last month, Royal Philips NV abandoned its plan to sell its lighting-components unit to a Chinese-led investment group following opposition from CFIUS.

“If you have a U.S. stock exchange that’s primarily satisfying Chinese companies, the regulators are gonna look very closely at it,” Coulson said. “If your core business is listing Chinese companies in the U.S., that’s going to pick up a lot of regulatory scrutiny and caution.”

China Industrial Espionage:

This new book is the first full account, inside or outside government, of China’s efforts to acquire foreign technology.

Based on primary sources and meticulously researched, the book lays bare China’s efforts to prosper technologically through others’ achievements. For decades, China has operated an elaborate system to spot foreign technologies, acquire them by all conceivable means, and convert them into weapons and competitive goods—without compensating the owners. The director of the US National Security Agency recently called it “the greatest transfer of wealth in history.”

Written by two of America’s leading government analysts and an expert on Chinese cyber networks, this book describes these transfer processes comprehensively and in detail, providing the breadth and depth missing in other works. Drawing upon previously unexploited Chinese language sources, the authors begin by placing the new research within historical context, before examining the People’s Republic of China’s policy support for economic espionage, clandestine technology transfers, theft through cyberspace and its impact on the future of the US.

This book will be of much interest to students of Chinese politics, Asian security studies, US defence, US foreign policy and IR in general.

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China’s long history of spying on business

CNN: The United States indicted five members of China’s People’s Liberation Army Monday, accusing them of hacking into American companies and pilfering closely-guarded trade secrets. The charges — rejected by Beijing as “purely ungrounded and with ulterior purpose” — are a dramatic escalation in a squabble between the two countries over spying. But they will surprise few Americans working in sensitive industries.

While many countries engage in industrial espionage, China has long been among the most aggressive collectors of economic secrets — both online and off, experts say.

“I can tell you they [China] are the most pervasive,” Kevin Mandia, founder of cybersecurity firm Mandiant, told CNN. “The indictment is about taking intellectual property … it’s the theft of trade secrets, it’s economic espionage.” Full article here.

Putin’s Hidden Agents in ISIS

Posted on February 5, 2016February 5, 2016 by Denise Simon

It is about a global power-ranking. When Russia and Iran team up to destabilized Syria, refugees, millions of them flee. Destination for the refugees, The West. The West is forced to accommodate millions, pay for them, house them, educated them and provide medical care, breaking the financial structure. How come Russia has not taken any refugees or Iran or any country in the Middle East? They already know. Now the challenge for the West is to have aggressive leadership by the United States, not until 2017 will that be realized or will it?

The KGB/FSB has an agenda, it is well underway…..As you read below, submit your thoughts.

NewAmerican: On December 6, 2015, in a televised interview with the Ukrainian news program ТСН Тиждень (TSN Tyzhden, Ukrainian for TSN Weekly), a former FSB officer admitted that Russia is behind ISIS while ostensibly opposing it.

Former FSB officer codenamed “Yevgeniy” (shown, back toward camera) revealed that Russia’s FSB security services was, at the very least, complicit in the Paris attacks carried out by ISIS, and most shockingly that the FSB was involved in the creation of ISIS, which it influences through its agents who staff it as well as other related Islamic terrorist organizations.

The FSB, which stands for Federal Security Service in Russian, was organized in 1995 as the successor to the Soviet KGB. After the KGB was officially dissolved in 1991, it was briefly renamed the AFB (Agency for Federal Security), which was reorganized that same year as the MB (Ministry of Security). In 1993, the MB became the FSK (Federal Counter-Intelligence Service), which was again reorganized into its present form and name as the FSB on April 12, 1995.

Yevgeniy reportedly specialized in both terrorist organizations and counter-terrorism activities within the FSB. Defecting for personal reasons rather than ideological, Yevgeniy told TSN’s Andriy Tsaplienko that among the vast number of refugees entering Europe were certain Russian operatives whose task it was to infiltrate the Muslim communities. Financed by the FSB, these undercover Muslim operatives would rise to prominence within their respective communities, in turn providing the Kremlin with valuable intelligence of Muslim activates in Europe and allowing Moscow to exert influence over the communities. More here.

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WikiLeaks Forum:
Part one of this series looked at the historical manipulation of Islamists by Russian security services. Jihadists were armed and trained to fight by the FSB and GRU in places like Georgia and Nargono-Karabakh. Domestically, jihadists were infiltrated by the FSB into nationalist separatist movements in Dagestan and Chechnya, effectively painting those movements as religious radicals rather than freedom fighters battling an oppressive regime in Moscow.
Related Posts

Part two looked at a few specific examples of Chechen and Georgian jihadists who are probably witting or unwitting FSB assets, and how they have become power players within ISIS. The reasons for this are twofold and represent a re-creation of the same strategy used in Chechnya. Chechen jihadists helped to re-contextualize the Syrian rebels, Islamizing them in the world’s eyes. By doing this, they also acted as a spoiler force, preventing the CIA from being able to train and arm many Syrian rebels because of the presence of so many jihadi groups, a draw for many of the moderates in the region.
This article will take a look at ISIS propaganda, or what the world’s intelligence services would call information operations or psychological operations, and ask the question as to whether there is a hidden hand behind these propaganda videos.

Wahhabywood

The allure that ISIS holds for young jihadis and the fear they inspire in the rest of the world stems not from the actual combat prowess of the organization, but from its image. That image is carefully crafted, and much has been written about the high production values of the propaganda ISIS puts out. Their videos display dehumanized Islamic warriors in black masks, fully devoted to the cause of creating an Islamic caliphate. They never sleep, they never tire, they will conquer the entire world, bathing it in the blood of infidels and installing some kind of Muslim mojo hocus pocus 7th-century sharia law, or so we are told.

ISIS represents the darkest nightmares the Western world has about the Middle East, Arabs, and Muslims. The Islamic State represents a temporally displaced land of barbarians that has no place in the modern world. These nightmares are carefully cultivated by ISIS in slick propaganda films that show a deep awareness of liberal Western cultural values; the images and actions in these films are often specifically targeting Western audiences. ISIS’s reputation in the Middle East, much of it gained by way of their propaganda, is so profound, this author has been told that when an ISIS convoy rolls up to a village, all they need to do is blink their headlights and the locals will completely abandon their homes without a fight.

Their propaganda is good. Maybe too good.

ISIS propaganda targets Western liberal sensitivities in a very deliberate manner. There are many ways they do this, but four stand out quite clearly.

1. Mass executions, especially of Christians.
ISIS thrives on the blood bath of mass executions. No one is spared. Shia Muslims, children, ordinary civilians, so-called infidels and apostates, suspected traitors, Kurds, it hardly matters to ISIS. They are also known to carry out summary beheadings when they arrive in a village of the first person they can get their hands on just to prove that they are now in charge. However, it is the deliberate mass murder of Christians in Syria, Iraq, and Libya that is clearly designed to antagonize Western populations.

2. Sexual slavery
Openly flaunting sexual slavery is another propaganda point for ISIS, one that intentionally provokes Western values, but arguably human values across the world. Murder is one thing, but holding slave auctions in Mosul and selling off 13-year-old Yezidi girls or handing them out as gifts to ISIS fighters is particularly vile. ISIS is quite proud of this and brags about it in videos and public statements; their brand of sharia law also openly endorses it. This savage behavior deliberately provokes Westerners sensitive to gender issues.

3. Destruction of antiquities
The truth is that many Americans could care less about what happens in the Middle East. Arabs have been killing each other for hundreds of years and will continue to do so unabated. But even some of the most jaded people in the West get outraged at the destruction of antiquities. Following in the footsteps of the Taliban, who destroyed ancient Buddha statues, ISIS knows that their destruction of ancient Roman and Assyrian artifacts and structure will invite the ire of the world.

4. Targeting homosexuals
ISIS beheads and murders people at whim, but full-page spreads of professionally done photographs capturing ISIS tossing homosexual men from rooftops is something else entirely. Gay rights is an important issue in the West, and ISIS not only murders gays but makes sure that the entire world knows about it by recording these executions.
It is important to remember that none of these propaganda videos or pictures are released without permission from ISIS. We see what ISIS wants us to see. I am not cherry-picking the worst behavior of ISIS to present to our readers, I’m simply pointing out the images they want foremost in our minds. ISIS is baiting the Western world. Their end goal is also stated in the open: They want a coalition of Western nations to attack them.

Reflexive control

Reflexive control is a theory of psychological warfare designed to control enemy perceptions and has been studied and developed by Russian intelligence services for over 40 years. “Reflexive control is defined as a means of conveying to a partner or an opponent specially prepared information to incline him to voluntarily make the predetermined decision desired by the initiator of the action,” writes Timothy Thomas. Reflexive control involves studying the opposition’s decision-making process, then introducing socially, strategically, or politically loaded information into that process in order to influence it in a direction favorable to your objectives.

Russian defense analysts perceive America’s 1980s “Star Wars” or SDI program as a perfect example of reflexive control. According to the Russians, America knew that the USSR would respond to match horizontal and vertical proliferation of weapons, as well as the countermeasures to stop them. Therefore, America instituted the Star Wars program to trick the Soviet Union into investing in novel new weapons programs it could not afford, which then led to the crash of the Soviet economy. By doing this, we “compelled the enemy to act according to a plan favorable to the U.S.” (Thomas, 239).

By definition, reflexive control occurs when the controlling organ conveys (to the objective system) motives and reasons that cause it to reach the desired decision, the nature of which is maintained in strict secrecy. The decision itself must be made independently. A “reflex” itself involves the specific process of imitating the enemy’s reasoning or imitating the enemy’s possible behavior and causes him to make a decision unfavorable to himself (Thomas, 241).

In other words, once you understand how the enemy thinks, you then feed him information you know will cause him to reach an independent decision favoring your own strategy. In essence, you are using deception to trick the enemy, hoping that they will blunder into something that they wouldn’t attempt if they knew that they were being presented with loaded, and potentially false, information. While we are focused on Russian stratagems here, it may also be useful to reflect back of the deception tactics used by China as well, many of them derived from the period of the Warring States.

ISIS feeds the West loaded information

There is no proof that Russian intelligence has a hand in ISIS information/propaganda operations. However, considering what we have discussed thus far, this scenario should be taken seriously. ISIS is actively gaming the psychological makeup of Western audiences in order to provoke the United States and allied nations into a full-blown military confrontation with the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. If the hypothesis about Russian influence agents in ISIS is correct, and if they are participating in ISIS propaganda efforts, then we should ask why Russia would be interested in doing this to begin with.

The answer is fairly straightforward. Keeping America bogged down and preoccupied in the Middle East is of massive benefit to the Russian Federation. By goading America into another war in the Middle East, Russia has more opportunity to engage in military aggression in Ukraine, Dagestan, Chechnya, Georgia, Moldova, Akbazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and on and on throughout Russia’s near abroad. For sure, there would also be some more specific tactical and strategic goals, but in the general sense, the Gulf War III would help keep America off Russia’s back.

ISIS, and perhaps Russian intelligence, understands America’s future rationalizations for war very well. In the past we could justify war as being battles against communism or fascism for the preservation of the American way of life. Before that, more jingoistic narratives about manifest destiny were brought into play. But these justifications for war, racial or nationalistic, will have no place in future liberal Western nations. Instead wars will be justified as fights for gay rights, women’s rights, and other equality issues. One hypothetical example: Americans will be told that we have to invade Iran because gays are stoned to death or beheaded by the Iranian regime.

The Islamic State knows that there is no better way to terrify and incite Americans than to use mass executions, the murder of Christians, the use of sex slaves, the destruction of ancient relics, and the killing of homosexuals. ISIS is at war with Western consciousness, and it is a very deliberate effort.

Basically, we see Daesh, we see the Islamic State — especially in the West — we see it from the surface, which is the mix of their propaganda; their version of what they really do. You see the pictures of actual killings, slaughtering, beheadings, blowing up things, mixed with their propaganda, or mixed with the things which are not true. They are controlling whatever comes out of their area. For example, if you take the pictures and the images we have of the Islamic State, 99% are approved by their PR department. They give us pictures of all these lined-up Humvees, guys with guns, perfect afternoon light set in the desert. They have accepted the presence of a few photographers who are in the area, from AFP, Reuters, AP; the big agencies, no matter if they would be considered Zionists, masons, imperialists, infidel agencies — they are in their area and they had to swear allegiance and in most cases the office is directly controlling all the images before they are permitted to submit them or it’s made clear to them. They sort of tell them, ‘if you do something wrong which harms our reputation, you know what will happen to you. We know you; we will find you.’ So the images that are transferred through the agencies, all the big agencies, are images that have been approved by Daesh. And Daesh invites the photographers to their events.—Christoph Reuters

None of this proves that this effort is being led, sponsored by, or covertly influenced by Russian intelligence assets. ISIS seems quite capable of hiring contractors with technical expertise, from oil industry engineers to computer hackers. Also, it is not as hard to make professional-looking films as it was 10 or 20 years ago. A kid with a decent digital camera and a laptop with film-editing software can do a pretty good job at filmmaking. Perhaps ISIS has developed all of this methodology on their own, but I am far from the first person to be surprised by ISIS’s slick Madison Avenue-worthy propaganda.

There are far more questions than answers here. For example, what about the Baath party leadership cells that actually run ISIS? These old dogs are not suicidal by any means and are actually quite cunning. A coalition of Western states spearheading a third Gulf War seems like it would be counterproductive to their goals. Yet, it would be impossible to believe that a few influence agents within ISIS have completely hijacked their propaganda efforts away from the Baathists. Maybe they are getting something in return? One can only speculate. While the first two parts of this article give some solid evidence for the reader to ponder, part three is an extrapolation on the first two articles. We don’t know if Russian intelligence has a hand in ISIS propaganda.

German Intelligence 100+ Tips, Merkel Ignored, Obama?

Posted on February 5, 2016February 5, 2016 by Denise Simon

German spy agency got 100 tip-offs about ISIS fighters among refugees: report

Reuters: Germany’s domestic intelligence agency (BfV) has received more than 100 tip-offs that there are Islamic State fighters among the refugees currently staying in Germany, Berliner Zeitung newspaper cited the agency’s chief as saying.

The newspaper said on Friday, without citing its sources, that BfV chief Hans-Georg Maassen had recently mentioned this number at a discussion in the Interior Ministry with politicians who focus on domestic policy issues.

But Maassen also said that among those tip-offs there were some cases of untruthful defamation, the newspaper said.

The domestic intelligence agency was not immediately available to comment when contacted by Reuters.

Islamic State militants have slipped into Europe disguised as refugees, the head of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency (BfV) said on Friday, a day after security forces thwarted a potential IS attack in Berlin.

Hans-Georg Maassen said the terrorist attacks in Paris last November had shown that Islamic State was deliberately planting terrorists among the refugees flowing into Europe.

“Then we have repeatedly seen that terrorists … have slipped in camouflaged or disguised as refugees. This is a fact that the security agencies are facing,” Maassen told ZDF television.

“We are trying to recognize and identify whether there are still more IS fighters or terrorists from IS that have slipped in,” he added.

The Berliner Zeitung newspaper cited Maassen on Friday as saying that the BfV had received more than 100 tip-offs that there were Islamic State fighters among the refugees currently staying in Germany.

German fears about an attack have risen since the Paris killings. On Thursday, German forces arrested two men suspected of links to Islamic State militants preparing an attack in the German capital.

Authorities also canceled a friendly international soccer match in Hanover last year and closed stations in Munich at New Year due to security concerns.

Maassen, however, warned against alarm.

“We are in a serious situation and there is a high risk that there could be an attack. But the security agencies, the intelligence services and the police authorities are very alert and our goal is to minimize the risk as best we can,” he said.

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IN 2015: German intelligence ‘concerned’ Islamists recruiting refugees

Berlin (AFP) – German intelligence warned Tuesday that the number of Islamic extremists in the country had increased sharply in recent months and expressed serious concern that they were recruiting among refugees.

The Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), Germany’s domestic security watchdog, said the number of radical Salafists had surged to 7,900 in September from 7,500 in June, and that many were trying to lure asylum-seekers into their ranks.

“We are very concerned that Islamists in Germany are trying, under the cover of humanitarian assistance, to exploit the situation of the refugees for their own ends and to proselytise and recruit among asylum-seekers,” BfV president Hans-Georg Maassen said in a statement.

Germany expects to receive up to one million asylum-seekers this year, five times more than last year. Syrians, who are fleeing their war-ravaged country, form the largest group.

Maassen said that a total of 740 radical Muslims had left Germany to join jihadists in Syria and Iraq, 20 percent of them female. Around one-third of those who went to the region have returned to Germany, while about 120 of them have been killed.

He said the BfV was keeping close watch on such activities given their “significant radicalisation potential” in the migrant community.

“We are keeping a particularly close eye on unaccompanied minors among the refugees, who could be easy targets for Islamists,” he said.

Maassen stressed that his office had no evidence that jihadist groups were using the large influx of refugees to infiltrate Germany.

Germany says it expects to receive up to one million asylum-seekers in 2015 (AFP Photo/Axel Schmidt)

And he said the BfV was also concerned that far-right groups were seizing on the issue of Germany’s openness to refugees for propaganda purposes, saying it contained “significant potential for escalation”.

Maassen warned that the risk of clashes with left-wing counter-demonstrators also “should not be discounted”.

– Dawn raids-

German police carried out dawn raids in Berlin Tuesday targeting individuals suspected of inciting people to go and fight for the Islamic State group in Syria.

The raids began at 6:30 am (0430 GMT) and targeted, among others, a 51-year-old Moroccan suspected of recruiting for the jihadists, police said in a statement.

A 19-year-old Macedonian thought to be currently in Syria is also suspected of involvement in the recruitment drive, it said.

“We are looking for evidence to see whether these allegations are true,” a police spokesman said. No arrests were made.

One raid was conducted at an association linked to a mosque in Berlin’s central Tempelhof district, the spokesman said. Seven homes were also searched.

“We have no indications that anything was being planned in Germany,” he said when asked about indications of any plot to attack targets here.

But people who go to fight in Syria “gain experience of violence there and one day or another can return to Berlin”, he said.

He added that there was no link to an incident last Thursday in which an Iraqi man with a jihadist background stabbed a German policewoman before officers shot him dead in Berlin.

Germany has been spared a major Islamist attack, unlike many of its European neighbours, but the country has been called a potential target in IS propaganda.

In August, two German-speaking jihadists claiming to belong to IS threatened Germany with attacks in an execution video broadcast online.

El Chapo’s America: Flooded with Heroin-Fentanyl

Posted on February 5, 2016February 5, 2016 by Denise Simon

The DEA operation, called “Project Cassandra,” is meant to disrupt and dismantle Hezbollah’s global network that supplies drugs to the U.S. and Europe as well as cut into the terror organization’s ability to fund its activities through drug trafficking.

In the investigation, authorities uncovered a network of money couriers who collect and transport millions of euros in drug proceeds from Europe to the Middle East. The currency is then paid in Colombia to drug traffickers using the Hawala disbursement system, which makes it difficult to track. ***

Last spring, Brazil’s Civil Police arrested Hamzi Ahmad Barakat in the city of Curitiba under allegations that he had connections to a network of front companies that fleeced Lebanese immigrants who had recently moved to Brazil.

Barakat, who allegedly has ties to the infamous Triple Frontier region, is listed in the United States as a member of Hezbollah and is suspected of trafficking arms, drugs, explosives and counterfeit bills.

“He was preying on his own countrymen, using their identities to create companies to carry out schemes,” said Cassiano Aufiero, the police investigator in charge of the case.

Aufiero added that while he knew of Barakat’s purported ties to the Islamic militant group, he said that he was under arrest for different matters, including embezzlement and the creation of false documents.

Barakat’s arrest shed more light on the Triple Border region, which has become a hotspot for smugglers and drawn the attention of the U.S., Israel and governments throughout South America.

The region has drawn a number of immigrants for the Middle East, particularly from Lebanon, and is believed to be one of Hezbollah’s major areas of operation outside of the Islamic world, due to its seclusion, loose borders, rampant political corruption and weak judicial system. Brazil has one of the largest Lebanese population’s outside of Lebanon with at least 7 million people from that country residing there and some estimates claiming closer to 13 million.

In 2004, Barakat’s brother, Assad Ahmad Barakat, was named by the Treasury Department as one of Hezbollah’s “most prominent and influential members” and was believed to have used an electronics wholesale store in the Triple Frontier as a cover for raising funds for Hezbollah. The Brazilian police arrested him in 2002 and deported him to Paraguay, where he went to prison for tax evasion.

The Department of Justice National Drug Threat Assessment report.

Fentanyl: drug 50 times more potent than heroin ravages New Hampshire

Of 69 fatal overdose victims last year, 68% had taken the synthetic opioid, which Mexican cartels have learned to make and smuggle to interstate highways. The drug ‘is what is killing our citizens,’ says Manchester’s police chief

Guardian: to the Drug Enforcement Administration, fentanyl is a synthetic opioid 100 times more powerful than morphine, and 30-50 times more powerful than heroin.

“Fentanyl is what is killing our citizens,” said Manchester’s chief of police, Nick Willard, in testimony before Congress last week.

In 2013, the city of Manchester had 14 fatal overdoses, one of which (7%) involved a victim with fentanyl in their system, according to Willard. In 2015, 69 people fatally overdosed, 68% of whom had taken fentanyl. The state statistics are no more cheery. Officials at the office of the chief medical examiner in New Hampshire say they have yet to receive testing results from 36 suspected overdoses, but they’ve counted 399 fatal overdose victims so far, more than two-thirds of whom died with fentanyl in their system.

“It’s not like Mario Batali,” said Willard from his office in Manchester, comparing heroin dealers cutting their supply with the famed chef. “These guys are just throwing it in a mixer. You could get a bag that’s perfect and no one is going to die from it. You could also get a bag [that’s] straight fentanyl and that would kill you.”

Willard said that during a recent raid in Manchester, he found a dealer mixing fentanyl with whey protein. In another sting that led to a seizure in Lawrence, Massachusetts, the dealer was allegedly mixing heroin and fentanyl in a kitchen blender.

For the most part, said Willard, the story of opiate use in Manchester follows the same patterns as the rest of the country. The crisis was ushered in by the rise of prescription painkillers like OxyContin. Addicts looking for a cheaper high frequently turned to the more dangerous, yet significantly cheaper, heroin.

The turning point, he says, happened sometime after 2010, when Purdue Pharma altered the medication to make it more difficult to tamper with and get high. Suppliers in Mexico were quick to keep up with the burgeoning market, and addicts in Manchester, which sits near Interstate 93, Route 3, Route 81, and Route 9, had no problem tapping into the supply. More here.

Chicago:

“What Al Capone was to beer and whiskey, Guzmán is to narcotics,” Art Bilek, the commission’s executive vice president, said at the time. Except, Bilek added, Guzmán “is clearly more dangerous than Al Capone was at his height.” (Zambada is plenty dangerous, too: Prosecutors say he commanded logistics and security for the cartel, including assassinations. He is suspected in a number of slayings, including the murders of government officials.)

The cartel’s scope is staggering. About half of the estimated $65 billion worth of illegal cocaine, heroin, and other narcotics that Americans buy each year enters the United States via Mexico, according to law enforcement experts (though the drugs often originate in South or Central America). More than half of that is believed to be supplied by Sinaloa. Drug enforcement experts estimate, conservatively, that the cartel’s annual revenues exceed $3 billion: more than those of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Group.

In Chicago, the cartel has a near monopoly. “I’d say 70 to 80 percent of the narcotics here are controlled by Sinaloa and Chapo Guzmán,” says Jack Riley, director of the DEA’s Chicago office. “Virtually all of our major investigations at some point lead back to other investigations tied to Sinaloa.”

In August 2009, five months after Zambada’s capture, a federal grand jury in Chicago indicted him and 45 others tied to a Sinaloa-led drug ring in the city. Patrick Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney at the time, called the indictments “the most significant drug importation conspiracies ever charged in Chicago,” claiming that the cartel imported and distributed nearly $6 billion worth of illegal narcotics mostly to the Chicago area between 1990 and 2008.