Category Archives: #StopIran

United States Ranks #3 in Refugee Destinations

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From the UN: The current refugee crisis arising from civil upheaval in the Middle East and Africa has caused over 4.1 million people to flee Syria alone since 2011. While the majority of asylum seekers in the region initially flee to neighboring countries (more than a quarter of the population resident in Lebanon is Syrian) most aspire to establish refugee status in Europe.

Despite the European Union’s Dublin Treaty, which states that an asylum seeker must apply for asylum in their country of first entry into the union, many are moving north to places that promise higher economic chances. At the top of their list: Germany, which expects to receive 1.5 million asylum seekers in 2015. This recent influx has resulted in diverse reactions in the European political and social spheres. Photographs of fences erected around Hungary and Austria’s border to Slovenia, and Hungarian camerawoman tripping a man fleeing with his son evidence the exclusionary sentiment present on the continent, supported by growing right wing movements.

And yet some countries and politicians have insisted that they can and will accommodate large numbers of refugees.

What makes a country a ‘good’ country for refugee resettlement, fairly assuming their burden in the global community? Here are four countries on three continents that both quantitatively and qualitatively stand out.

With as many refugees arriving in Europe last month than all of last year, this question of where they can and should resettle is all the more urgent.

1)   Germany. The huge migration of refugees seeking asylum in Germany in autumn of 2015 has dominated the news for months. Many believe that this sudden influx arose from rumors spread through co-nationals living in Germany that refugees would encounter both physical and economic security, if they made it to this EU leader. Angela Merkel made headlines with her strong position in favor of processing the huge numbers of refugees. “If Europe fails on the question of refugees, then it won’t be the Europe we wished for.” German Interior Minister Thomas de Maizere characterized the influx as “challenging but not overwhelming.” Germany now expects 1.5 million asylum applications this year alone, the highest in Europe. Last year, Germany accepted 40,000 applications, granting asylum to more individuals than any other European country.

2)   Sweden. It is important to discern between countries that process and temporarily provide residence to, and those that actually recognize large numbers of asylum seekers (the above case of Germany does both). When considering the total accepted asylum applications in relation to the overall country population, Sweden tops the charts. Sweden has historically accepted refugees from across the globe, beginning with those fleeing authoritarian rule in Chile during the 1970s. In 2013, the Swedish Migration Board granted Syrian refugees permanent residence in Sweden. In Sweden, the rights granted to refugees on account of this permanent status—immediate capacity to work, choosing place of residence and family reunification—are notable and vital for quality of life.

3)   The United States. Influenced by its political and military position regarding conflict in Syria, the U.S. has not favorably made the news on the current refugee crisis, offering to resettle only approximately 10,000 Syrian refugees. Yet looking holistically at its system reveals a sunnier picture of U.S. refugee policy. The United States permanently resettles more refugees than any other country in the world, historically taking half of all applications received via the UN Refugee Agency. Last year, this amounted to about 70,000 refugees worldwide who, for the most part, were living in limbo in the country to which they fled.  The USA may not be a viable option for Syrian refugees, but large numbers of refugees from elsewhere are routinely resettled in the USA.

4)   Brazil. Comprehensively evaluating policies though a survey rating refugees’ actual access to the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, as well as national human rights legislation, the World Refugee Survey 2013 grades countries based on refoulement/physical protection; detention/access to courts; freedom of movement and residence; and right to earn a livelihood. The only country reciving an “A” grade in all categories is Brazil. Additionally, the reciprocal entry policy between Brazil and numerous African countries allows asylum seekers to circumvent dangerous routes and smuggling often used by those attempting to reach the United States or Europe. Brazil, whose little known refugee system may not excel quantitatively (although asylum requests have exploded from a mere 560 in 2010 to 12,000 in 2014), excels qualitatively in its refugee resettlement policies.

Meanwhile, who is among those refugees?

Al Qaeda Terror Boss Discovered On Migrant Boat, Authorities ‘Tried To Hide News’

A convicted terrorist has been caught trying to smuggle himself into Europe by posing as an asylum seeker, in a stark event proving correct those who warned of terrorists taking advantage of the European Union’s lax border controls.

BreitbartLondon: Ben Nasr Mehdi, a Tunisian who was first arrested in Italy in 2007 and sentenced to seven years imprisonment for plotting terror attacks with an Islamic State-linked group, was caught trying to re-enter the country last month.

Authorities discovered him among 200 migrants who were rescued at sea and taken to the island of Lampedusa. Although he gave a false name, migration officers identified him through finger print records, the Independent reports.

German channel n-tv claims the Italian government initially tried to hide the story to avoid “panic” and “scare tactics”. The news did not emerge until several days after Mehdi had been detained last week.

Mehdi was then interrogated for several days before being deported back to Tunisia, where he was handed over to local police.

The revelation will likely add to fears that Islamist terrorists are using the migrant crisis as a means to enter Europe.

In April, UKIP leader Nigel Farage told the European Parliament that terrorists would try to exploit the crisis. He told MEPs: “When ISIS say they want to flood our continent with half a million Islamic extremists they mean it, and there is nothing in [the Common European Asylum Policy] that will stop them.

“I fear we face a direct threat to our civilisation if we allow large numbers of people from that war torn region into Europe.”

The following month, Italian authorities arrested Abdel Majid Touil, a Moroccan accused of being involved in a terror attack on the Bardo museum in Tunisia. He had smuggled himself into Italy on a migrant boat in February.

Italian Interior Minister Angelino Alfano has until now insisted there is no evidence that Islamist terrorists are smuggling themselves into the country among the thousands of migrants, but his ministry has admitted that Ben Nasr Mehdi is exceptionally dangerous.

When police arrested him in 2007, they found explosive detonators, poisons and guerrilla warfare manuals. Prosecutors said he had been part of a group that was setting up militant cells that had recruited potential suicide bombers.

Authorities intercepted phone calls in which he indicated he had supplied instructions and contacts to terrorists in Damascus, thus marking him out as a senior operative.

European leaders are becoming increasingly worried about the potential terror threat from the migrant crisis. Last month, German Interior Minister Thomas de Mazière said his country had become a “focus of international terrorism” thanks to migration. NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg has also expressed similar fears.

Crackas With Attitude Hit FBI Director

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A few days ago, it was the Director of the CIA, John Brennan, now it is the Director of the FBI. The hacking group boasted their success on Twitter, but that account has since been terminated.

CIA email hackers breach FBI-run site, deputy director’s private email

The same hackers who breached the email account of CIA Director John Brennan last month are now believed to be behind another set of intrusions, including accessing a FBI-run law enforcement portal and a private email account of a top bureau official.

The hackers, who call themselves Crackas With Attitude, posted Friday personal data of law enforcement officials that appears to have been stolen from the Law Enforcement Enterprise Portal, CNN reported.

The FBI-run site, also known as LEO.gov, connects local and federal law enforcement officials and allows local, state and federal agencies to share information, including details of ongoing investigations.

Three U.S. law enforcement officials confirmed the breach. Users of the portal received notices that their data may have been compromised.

In addition, a Twitter account that investigators believe is operated by the hackers posted screenshotsThursday that appear to have come from a private email account belonging to FBI Deputy Director Mark Giuliano and his wife.

The same Twitter account also posted data that appeared to come from the LEO.gov site, including names and contact information for law enforcement employees.

The three officials told CNN that the same hackers who accessed Mr. Brennan’s email account are believed to be behind the latest breaches.

An FBI spokeswoman declined to comment on the alleged breaches.

“We have no comment on specific claims of hacktivism, but those who engage in such activities are breaking the law,” FBI spokeswoman Carol Cratty told CNN. “The FBI takes these matters very seriously. We will work with our public and private sector partners to identify and hold accountable those who engage in illegal activities in cyberspace.”

New Gitmo West, Colorado Rockies

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Where is your voice on this? Where is the outrage?

There is law in place where Guantanamo detainees cannot be moved to the Continental United States, but as usual Barack Obama has a pen and will release his plan this week to close the detention center and move detainees to Colorado.

Secretary of Defense Ash Carter just returned from a long trip to Asia and he made a stop today at the Reagan Library to deliver a speech in an all day forum on national defense. He never said a single word on the topic of closing Guantanamo Bay.

In part from WSJ: Mr. Obama’s inability to negotiate honestly with the legislature is a hallmark of his Presidency. More damaging is the precedent he is setting by making major policy changes with no more than a wave of his executive hand. Press reports note that Administration lawyers are working on legal justifications for the Gitmo order. Decision first, the law later.
Another day at the office for a progressive President intent on reducing the legislative branch to a nullity. For the record, the National Defense Authorization Act this year contains an explicit congressional ban on transferring detainees to the U.S. through 2016.

Pentagon to release Guantanamo detainee relocation plan, as Obama pressed ahead with closure

FNC:     The Pentagon is expected to release a plan next week on President Obama’s years-long effort to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center that suggests a Colorado prison dubbed “the Alcatraz of the Rockies” as one suitable site to relocate expected life-long detainees, Obama administration officials say.

Obama made a campaign promise in his 2008 White House bid to close the facility, arguing the move would be in the United States’ best financial, national security and foreign policy interests and in the name of justice — considering some of the detainees have been held for nearly nine years without trial or sentencing.

However, critics of the promise, including many Republicans, fear transferring detainees to the U.S. mainland as part of an overall closure plan poses too much of a homeland security risk. They also say the president has yet to submit a closure plan and have been critical of the administration recently allowing some known terrorists to return to the Middle East.

The Florence, Colo., prison is among seven U.S. facilities in Colorado, Kansas and South Carolina being considered.

The Pentagon plan represents a last-gasp effort by the administration to convince staunch opponents in Congress that dangerous detainees who can’t be transferred safely to other countries should be housed in a U.S.-based prison.

The United States opened the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks to get suspected terrorists off the battlefield.

Congressional Republicans have been able to stop Obama from closing the facility by imposing financial and other restrictions.

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said this week that the administration is trying “very hard” to transfer 53 more detainees, among the 112 remaining, before the end of the year.

The rest are either facing trial by military commission or the government has determined that they are too dangerous to release but are not facing charges.

Any decision to select a U.S. facility would require congressional approval — something U.S. lawmakers say is unlikely. However, Earnest also suggested that Obama has not ruled out the possibility of using an executive order to close the facility.

The Pentagon plan makes no recommendations on which of the seven sites is preferred and provides no rankings, according to administration officials.

A Pentagon assessment team reviewed the sites in recent months and detailed their advantages and disadvantages. They include locations, costs for renovations and construction, the ability to house troops and hold military commission hearings, and health care facilities.

Colorado’s Centennial Correctional Facility has advantages that could outweigh its disadvantages, according to officials. But no details were available and no conclusions have been reached. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

The Florence, Colo., facility already holds convicted terrorists, including Unabomber Ted Kaczynski and Zacarias Moussaoui, one of the conspirators of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

To approve a transfer, Defense Secretary Ash Carter must conclude that the detainees will not return to terrorism or the battlefield upon release and that there is a host country willing to take them and guarantee they will secure them.

Arizona Sen. John McCain is among the congressional Republicans who have asked for an administration plan for the shutdown of Guantanamo. And the Pentagon’s assessment team visits over the last few months were part of the effort to provide options for the relocation of Guantanamo detainees.

“I’ve asked for six and a half years for this administration to come forward with a plan — a plan that we could implement in order to close Guantanamo. They have never come forward with one and it would have to be approved by Congress,” McCain said this week.

The facilities reviewed by the assessment team were the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks and Midwest Joint Regional Corrections Facility at Leavenworth, Kansas; the Consolidated Naval Brig, Charleston, South Carolina; the Federal Correctional Complex, which includes the medium, maximum and supermax facilities in Florence, Colorado; and the Colorado State Penitentiary II in Canon City, Colorado, also known as the Centennial Correctional Facility.

Colorado Republican Sen. Cory Gardner made clear this week that he opposes any move to relocate detainees to his state.

“I will not sit idly by while the president uses political promises to imperil the people of Colorado by moving enemy combatants from Cuba, Guantanamo Bay, to my state of Colorado,” he said at a Capitol Hill news conference.

He also expressed concerns about the potential impact of such a move on the state’s judicial system and concerns about detainees potentially have to transported from the rural facility to downtown Denver to the federal courthouse for a hearing.

McCain and others have said that an executive order to shutter Guantanamo would face fierce opposition, including efforts to reverse the decision through funding mechanisms.

The prison at Guantanamo presents a particularly confrontational replay of that strategy. Obama would likely have to argue that the restrictions imposed by Congress are unconstitutional, though he has abided by them for years. The dispute could set off a late-term legal battle with Republicans in Congress over executive power, potentially in the height of a presidential campaign.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Egypt: Flight Data-Recorder Points to Explosion/Bomb

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Paris (AFP) – An analysis of black boxes from the Russian plane that crashed in Egypt point to a bomb attack, sources close to the probe said Friday, as Moscow halted flights to the country

The flight data and voice recorders showed “everything was normal” until both failed at 24 minutes after takeoff, pointing to “a very sudden explosive decompression,” one source said.

The data “strongly favours” the theory a bomb on board had brought down the plane, he added.

Another source said the plane had gone down suddenly and violently.

Meanwhile, British airlines were scrambling to evacuate passengers in Sharm el-Sheikh after cancelling flights to the Red Sea resort from which the doomed Airbus had taken off Saturday.

One of the black boxes recovered from the crash site showed that the plane suffered “a violent, sudden” end, a source close to the case in Paris told AFP.

The flight data recorder showed that “everything was normal during the flight, absolutely normal, and suddenly there was nothing”. There is more.

*** ISIS has taken full responsibility for downing the aircraft due in part to Russia’s air and ground campaign in Syria. All the while, Russia has said there are no Russian ground troops in Syria but facts say otherwise.

WASHINGTON: Moscow’s military force in Syria has grown to about 4,000 personnel, but this and more than a month of Russian air strikes have not led to pro-government forces making significant territorial gains, U.S. security officials and independent experts said.

Moscow, which has maintained a military presence in Syria for decades as an ally of the ruling Assad family, had an estimated 2,000 personnel in the country when it began air strikes on Sept. 30. The Russian force has since roughly doubled and the number of bases it is using has grown, U.S. security officials said.

The Russians have suffered combat casualties, including deaths, said three U.S. security officials familiar with U.S. intelligence reporting, adding that they did not know the exact numbers.

The United States has extensive intelligence assets in the region, along with satellite imagery and electronic eavesdropping coverage and contacts with moderate Sunni and Kurdish rebels on the ground in Syria.

Russia’s foreign ministry declined to comment on the size of the Russian contingent in Syria or any casualties it has suffered. It referred questions to the Russian Defense Ministry, which did not respond to written questions submitted by Reuters.

The Kremlin has said there are no Russian troops in combat roles in Syria, though it has said there are trainers and advisers working alongside the Syrian military and also forces guarding Russia’s bases in western Syria.

Then there is the Egypt component:

Sharm al Sheik has been an elitist resort for many years and is one of the crown jewels in Egypt for tourism. Resorts in the area include the Four Seasons, Hyatt, Marriott and others, The area is rich in coral reefs, golf and yachts.

One must wonder where the full and disclosed passenger manifest from the downed aircraft is. Egypt needs tourism to survive for economic revenue and was getting some help from the UK in this endeavor. The Brits had in fact dispatched a large security team to the Sharm al Sheik airport to upgrade all security measures and ten months ago gave an all clear but did suggest additional steps be taken with particular regard to searching via x-ray all luggage and cargo. This was never completed, pointing to Egypt’s security systems at that airport failed. This is key as that resort has previously been used by worldwide government leaders for diplomatic meetings and as a playground. The southern part of the Sinai since the 1980’s has also been victim of several yet intermittent Islamic attacks.

al Sisi is quite anxious to rebuild the country with good reason such that there are plans on the drawing board to expand tourists locations and a new Middle East capitol.

‘A Global Capital’

Spiegel: The Egyptian government has decided to build a new capital city east of Cairo, smack in the middle of the desert. “A global capital,” the building minister announced at a conference on the Red Sea in March. At the event, investors from the Gulf states, China and Saudi Arabia gathered around a model of the new metropolis, admiring the business quarter, with its Dubai-style skyscrapers, the small residential homes in greenbelts and the football stadium. The city is to be situated on 700 square kilometers of land, with an airport larger than London’s Heathrow. President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi even wooed investors himself. He recently announced that construction would begin in January.

It is to be a capital created in accordance with the wishes of the country’s leadership elite. It may not fit well with the country as it currently exists, but it will conform to their vistions of Egypt’s future — a planned, manageable city conceived from the top down in the same way the pharaohs once created the pyramids. The new Cairo will be a beautiful place, an “innovation center,” environmentally sustainable, with a high quality of life, city planners are pledging. They want it to be a city where people can breathe without having to cough.

The old Cairo is an ugly city, an affront to the senses. Even as you begin heading into the city from the airport, the buildings are already blackened from pollution. The cacophony of car horns is painful to the ears and during winter months, the smog hangs like thick fog over the Nile. The city suffers from thrombosis, with streets so crammed with cars they’re like clogged arteries. Yet women in high-heel shoes saunter along the banks of the Nile smiling. Even though the place seems unbearable, Cairo is loved.

It is a city of contradictions, created from the bottom up, even though that had never been the intention. It has been growing wildly since the 1960s — from 3.5 million back then to 18 million now — against the will of the country’s rulers. Fully 11 million people live in structures that were built illegally and new residential districts continue popping up around the city like weeds in a field. The city center is becoming increasingly dense, to the point that, in one of the city’s largest cemeteries, people have even converted burial chambers into their living quarters. Cairo is dirty and chaotic, and, of course, it’s a city that gave birth to a revolution. More here.

 

Hillary DID Sign the NDA

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The FBI is still investigating Hillary yet some interesting items continue to surface and even perhaps be leaked.

Remember when Jen Psaki at the State Department said she did not know whether Hillary signed the appropriate documents on protecting classified material? Heh, well low and behold, Hillary did as is evidenced below.

Hillary Clinton's SCI Nondisclosure Agreement

Thanks to FreeBeacon and DailyMail: Hillary signed State Department contract saying it was HER job to know if documents were classified top secret, and laid out criminal penalties for ‘negligent handling’

  • Clinton signed ‘Sensitive Compartmented Information Nondisclosure Agreement’ on her second day at the State Department
  • It says she was personally responsible for determining if sensitive documents in her possession were classified at the highest level
  • Spelled out criminal laws under which she could be prosecuted
  • Hillary has said on the campaign trail that top-secret classified info found on her private email server wasn’t classified originally and it wasn’t her job to know better 

 

 

Hillary Clinton‘s claim that she was unaware top secret documents on her private email server were highly classified took a hit on Friday, with the revelation of a State Department contract she signed in 2009.

The ‘Sensitive Compartmented Information Nondisclosure Agreement,’ which Clinton inked during her second day as Secretary of State, declared that she was personally responsible for determining if sensitive documents in her possession were classified at the government’s highest level.

‘I understand that it is my responsibility to consult with appropriate management authorities in the Department … in order to ensure that I know whether information or material within my knowledge or control that I have reason to believe might be SCI.’

SCI – Sensitive Compartmented Information – is the highest level of ‘top secret’ classification, applying to information so sensitive because of the sources and methods used to obtain it that it can only be viewed in a special room, hardened against electronic eavesdropping, constructed for that purpose. The agreement Clinton signed in 2009, which warns against ‘negligent handling’ of state secrets, conflicts with her more recent positions on the presidential campaign trail.

Clinton has said none of the hundreds of classified documents found among emails on her unsecured server were classified at the time she sent or received them, and suggested that without a marking from intelligence officials, she wasn’t expected to know what is classified.

The libertarian Competitive Enterprise Institute think-tank obtained the document with Hillary’s signature, which the State Department declassified on Thursday, and gave it to the conservative Washington Free Beacon.

‘I have been advised that the unauthorized disclosure, unauthorized retention, or negligent handling of SCI by me could cause irreparable injury to the United States or be used to advantage by a foreign nation,’ the agreement Clinton signed states.

The U.S. Intelligence Community’s inspector general has said two of the Clinton emails released by the State Department so far in complying with a federal judge’s order contained SCI-level information, and had to be sanitized by experts before they could be published.

A spokesman for Hillary’s presidential campaign did not respond to DailyMail.com’s request for comment on Friday.

But the text of the agreement spells out plainly that Clinton agreed she was responsible for seeking help if she wasn’t clear about what was classified at the SCI level.

It also spelled out what might happen if she broke the terms of the contract.

‘I have been advised that any breach of this Agreement may result in my termination of my access to SCI and removal from a position of special confidence and trust requiring such access,’ the agreement reads, ‘as well as the termination of my employment or other relationships with my Department of Agency that provides me with access to SCI.’

‘In addition,’ she agreed, ‘I have been advised that any unauthorized disclosure of SCI by me may constitute violations of United States criminal laws, including provisions of Sections 793, 794, 796, and 952, Title 18, United States Code; and of Section 783(b), Title 50, United States Code.’

‘Nothing in this Agreement constitutes a waiver by the United States of the right to prosecute me for any statutory violations.’

Government officials who sign the same document Clinton signed acknowledge ‘agree that I shall return all materials that may have come into my possession or for which I am responsible because of such access, upon demand by an authorized representative of the United States Government or upon the termination of my employment.’

Clinton never returned her email server to the federal government. She housed it in her Chappaqua, New York home while she was America’s top diplomat, and then moved it when she left the Obama administration – entrusting it to a Colorado company that was not cleared to handle SCI-level documents.

The State Department acknowledged in September that Clinton’s home-brew server also was never authorized to handle such information.

The FBI is currently investigating Hillary’s email mess, in an information dragnet that has also roped in her former chief of staff Cheryl Mills and current top campaign aide Huma Abedin.

Both of those women also signed the DCI nondisclosure agreement.

*** One more thing, there were at least 5 attempts, perhaps even successful by the Russians hacking into Hillary’s emails.