See Who Does Exploit Offshore Tax Havens

Posted on April 19, 2016April 19, 2016 by Denise Simon

Offshore investment is among the murkiest sectors of the financial world. That’s by design — keeping money offshore can help shield money from tax authorities, obscure its origin and conceal the genuine owners. There are many legitimate reasons for opening an offshore banks account. Wealthy people do it to better manage their investment portfolios or protect their assets. Offshore accounts can also help the rich pay less tax — legally.

However, offshore accounts are also the lynchpin in many illegal tax avoidance schemes. Owners go to great lengths to conceal the existence of these accounts from their home governments, and they are often helped by lax disclosure rules in offshore tax havens.

Investors caught trying to hide their accounts can face steep penalties. More here from CNN.

US corporations have $1.4tn hidden in tax havens, claims Oxfam report

Charity analysis of the 50 biggest US businesses claims Apple have $181bn held offshore, while General Electric has $119bn and Microsoft $108bn

Guardian: US corporate giants such as Apple, Walmart and General Electric have stashed $1.4tn (£980bn) in tax havens, despite receiving trillions of dollars in taxpayer support, according to a report by anti-poverty charity Oxfam.

The sum, larger than the economic output of Russia, South Korea and Spain, is held in an “opaque and secretive network” of 1,608 subsidiaries based offshore, said Oxfam.

The charity’s analysis of the financial affairs of the 50 biggest US corporations comes amid intense scrutiny of tax havens following the leak of the Panama Papers.

And the charity said its report, entitled Broken at the Top was a further illustration of “massive systematic abuse” of the global tax system.

Technology giant Apple, the world’s second biggest company, topped Oxfam’s league table, with some $181bn held offshore in three subsidiaries.

Boston-based conglomerate General Electric, which Oxfam said has received $28bn in taxpayer backing, was second with $119bn stored in 118 tax haven subsidiaries.

Computing firm Microsoft was third with $108bn, in a top 10 that also included pharmaceuticals giant Pfizer, Google’s parent company Alphabet and Exxon Mobil, the largest oil company not owned by an oil-producing state.

Oxfam contrasted the $1.4tn held offshore with the $1tn paid in tax by the top 50 US firms between 2008 and 2014.

It pointed out that the companies had also enjoyed a combined $11.2tn in federal loans, bailouts and loan guarantees during the same period.

Overall, the use of tax havens allowed the US firms to reduce their effective tax rate on $4tn of profits from the US headline rate of 35% to an average of 26.5% between 2008 and 2014.

The charity said this had helped firms spend billions on an “army” of lobbyists calling for greater state support in the form of loans, bailouts and guarantees, funded by taxpayers.

The top 50 US firms spent $2.6bn between 2008 and 2014 on lobbying the US government, Oxfam said.

“For every $1 spent on lobbying, these 50 companies collectively received $130 in tax breaks and more than $4,000 in federal loans, loan guarantees and bailouts,” said Oxfam.

Robbie Silverman, senior tax adviser at Oxfam said: “Yet again we have evidence of a massive systematic abuse of the global tax system.

“We can’t go on with a situation where the rich and powerful are not paying their fair share of tax, leaving the rest of us to foot the bill.

“Governments across the globe must come together now to end the era of tax havens.”

Oxfam estimates that tax avoidance by US corporations costs the world’s largest economy some $111bn a year, but said it was also fuelling the global wealth divide by draining $100bn from the poorest countries.

“Tax dodging practised by corporations and enabled by federal policymakers contributes to dangerous inequality that is undermining our social fabric and hindering economic growth,” the report said.

Oxfam also singled out British overseas territories such as Bermuda for their popularity with US firms seeking to slash their tax bill by “profit-shifting”.

In 2012, said Oxfam, US firms reported $80bn of profit in Bermuda, more than their combined reported profits in Japan, China, Germany and France, four of the world’s five largest economies.

The charity called on the US government to pass the Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act, including a requirement for firms to report their tax contribution on a country-by-country basis, there is only one caution when doing this though and that is to not be mistaken that a country is a tax haven when in fact it isn’t, for example many people refer to Andorra as the tax haven of Andorra however Andorra is not actually a tax haven, one way to be sure whether a country is a legally classed tax haven is refer to the FATF blacklist, it lists every country that is recognised by government as an actual tax haven.

Country-by-country reporting has been recommended by a host of non-governmental organisations and charities to prevent companies from artificially shifting their income out of the poorest countries.

Russian Provocation on U.S. Military, Pact Violation

Posted on April 14, 2016April 14, 2016 by Denise Simon

Earlier this week, the Russians buzzed a U.S. guided missile destroyer in the Baltic Sea. This occurred 11 times over 2 days. It is an educated guess that this provocation was meant to be a classified occurrence but our military is angry and leaked it into the public domain. This is hardly the first time the Russians have behave outside the scope of international pacts and conditions against the West and allies.

The Russians did have a response to our complaints, that is if there were any from Washington:

NBC: A U.S. official said the maneuvers were “unsafe” and “unprofessional” — and that the jets were so low they left “wake in the water.” He said a Russian KA-27 helicopter also made seven passes above the destroyer and was believed to be photographing the ship.

Russian Ministry of Defense spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov hit back Thursday, saying that “upon visual contact, the Russian pilots have executed a turnaway from the ship, compliant to all safety regulations.”

Safety regulations? Whose regulations exactly? There is something called the IncSea that prevents as one of the issues THE exact type of incident that Russia is guilty of. Additionally, the Cold War Museum has an interesting story about this exact matter.

Agreement Between the Government of The United States of America and the Government of The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the Prevention of Incidents On and Over the High Seas

Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation

Signed at Moscow May 25, 1972
Entered into force May 25, 1972

Narrative
Treaty Text
Protocol

Narrative

In the late 1960s, there were several incidents between forces of the U.S. Navy and the Soviet Navy. These included planes of the two nations passing near one another, ships bumping one another, and both ships and aircraft making threatening movements against those of the other side. In March 1968 the United States proposed talks on preventing such incidents from becoming more serious. The Soviet Union accepted the invitation in November 1970, and the talks were conducted in two rounds — October 1, 1971, in Moscow and May 17, 1972, in Washington, D.C. The Agreement was signed by Secretary of the Navy John Warner and Soviet Admiral Sergei Gorshkov during the Moscow summit meeting in 1972.

Specifically, the agreement provides for:

steps to avoid collision;

not interfering in the “formations” of the other party;

avoiding maneuvers in areas of heavy sea traffic;

requiring surveillance ships to maintain a safe distance from the object of investigation so as to avoid “embarrassing or endangering the ships under surveillance”;

using accepted international signals when ships maneuver near one another;

not simulating attacks at, launching objects toward, or illuminating the bridges of the other partys ships;

informing vessels when submarines are exercising near them; and

requiring aircraft commanders to use the greatest caution and prudence in approaching aircraft and ships of the other party and not permitting simulated attacks against aircraft or ships, performing aerobatics over ships, or dropping hazardous objects near them.

The agreement also provides for: (1) notice three to five days in advance, as a rule, of any projected actions that might “represent a danger to navigation or to aircraft in flight”; (2) information on incidents to be channeled through naval attaches assigned to the respective capitals; and (3) annual meetings to review the implementation of the Agreement.

The protocol to this agreement grew out of the first meeting of the Consultative Committee established by the agreement. Each side recognized that its effectiveness could be enhanced by additional understandings relating to nonmilitary vessels. In the protocol signed in Washington, D.C., on May 22, 1973, each party pledged not to make simulated attacks against the nonmilitary ships of the other.

Like other confidence-building measures, the Incidents at Sea Agreement does not directly affect the size, weaponry, or force structure of the parties. Rather, it serves to enhance mutual knowledge and understanding of military activities; to reduce the possibility of conflict by accident, miscalculation, or the failure of communication; and to increase stability in times of both calm and crisis. In 1983, Secretary of the Navy John Lehman cited the accord as “a good example of functional navy-to-navy process” and credited this area of Soviet-American relations with “getting better rather than worse.” In 1985, he observed that the frequency of incidents was “way down from what it was in the 1960s and early 1970s.”

Treaty Text

Agreement Between the Government of The United States of America and the Government of The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the Prevention of Incidents On and Over the High Seas

Signed at Moscow May 25, 1972
Entered into force May 25, 1972

The Government of the United States of America and the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics,

Desiring to assure the safety of navigation of the ships of their respective armed forces on the high seas and flight of their military aircraft over the high seas, and

Guided by the principles and rules of international law,

Have decided to conclude this Agreement and have agreed as follows:

Article IFor the purpose of this Agreement, the following definitions shall apply:

1. “Ship” means:

(b) Naval auxiliaries of the Parties, which include all naval ships authorized to fly the naval auxiliary flag where such a flag has been established by either Party.

(a) A warship belonging to the naval forces of the Parties bearing the external marks distinguishing warships of its nationality, under the command of an officer duly commissioned by the government and whose name appears in the Navy list, and manned by a crew who are under regular naval discipline;

2. “Aircraft” means all military manned heavier-than-air and lighter-than-air craft, excluding space craft.

3. “Formation” means an ordered arrangement of two or more ships proceeding together and normally maneuvered together.

Article IIThe Parties shall take measures to instruct the commanding officers of their respective ships to observe strictly the letter and spirit of the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea, hereinafter referred to as the Rules of the Road. The Parties recognize that their freedom to conduct operations on the high seas is based on the principles established under recognized international law and codified in the 1958 Geneva Convention on the High Seas.

Article III1. In all cases ships operating in proximity to each other, except when required to maintain course and speed under the Rules of the Road, shall remain well clear to avoid risk of collision.

2. Ships meeting or operating in the vicinity of a formation of the other Party shall, while conforming to the Rules of the Road, avoid maneuvering in a manner which would hinder the evolutions of the formation.

3. Formations shall not conduct maneuvers through areas of heavy traffic where internationally recognized traffic separation schemes are in effect.

4. Ships engaged in surveillance of other ships shall stay at a distance which avoids the risk of collision and also shall avoid executing maneuvers embarrassing or endangering the ships under surveillance. Except when required to maintain course and speed under the Rules of the Road, a surveillant shall take positive early action so as, in the exercise of good seamanship, not to embarrass or endanger ships under surveillance.

5. When ships of both Parties maneuver in sight of one another, such signals (flag, sound, and light) as are prescribed by the Rules of the Road, the International Code of Signals, or other mutually agreed signals, shall be adhered to for signalling operations and intentions.

6. Ships of the Parties shall not simulate attacks by aiming guns, missile launchers, torpedo tubes, and other weapons in the direction of a passing ship of the other Party, not launch any object in the direction of passing ships of the other Party, and not use searchlights or other powerful illumination devices to illuminate the navigation bridges of passing ships of the other Party.

7. When conducting exercises with submerged submarines, exercising ships shall show the appropriate signals prescribed by the International Code of Signals to warn ships of the presence of submarines in the area.

8. Ships of one Party when approaching ships of the other Party conducting operations as set forth in Rule 4 (c) of the Rules of the Road, and particularly ships engaged in launching or landing aircraft as well as ships engaged in replenishment underway, shall take appropriate measures not to hinder maneuvers of such ships and shall remain well clear.

Article IVCommanders of aircraft of the Parties shall use the greatest caution and prudence in approaching aircraft and ships of the other Party operating on and over the high seas, in particular, ships engaged in launching or landing aircraft, and in the interest of mutual safety shall not permit: simulated attacks by the simulated use of weapons against aircraft and ships, or performance of various aerobatics over ships, or dropping various objects near them in such a manner as to be hazardous to ships or to constitute a hazard to navigation.

Article V1. Ships of the Parties operating in sight of one another shall raise proper signals concerning their intent to begin launching or landing aircraft.

2. Aircraft of the Parties flying over the high seas in darkness or under instrument conditions shall, whenever feasible, display navigation lights.

Article VIBoth Parties shall:

1. Provide through the established system of radio broadcasts of information and warning to mariners, not less than 3 to 5 days in advance as a rule, notification of actions on the high seas which represent a danger to navigation or to aircraft in flight.

2. Make increased use of the informative signals contained in the International Code of Signals to signify the intentions of their respective ships when maneuvering in proximity to one another. At night, or in conditions of reduced visibility, or under conditions of lighting and such distances when signal flags are not distinct, flashing light should be used to inform ships of maneuvers which may hinder the movements of others or involve a risk of collision.

3. Utilize on a trial basis signals additional to those in the International Code of Signals, submitting such signals to the Intergovernmental Maritime Consultative Organization for its consideration and for the information of other States.

Article VIIThe Parties shall exchange appropriate information concerning instances of collision, incidents which result in damage, or other incidents at sea between ships and aircraft of the Parties. The United States Navy shall provide such information through the Soviet Naval Attache in Washington and the Soviet Navy shall provide such information through the United States Naval Attache in Moscow.

Article VIIIThis Agreement shall enter into force on the date of its signature and shall remain in force for a period of three years. It will thereafter be renewed without further action by the Parties for successive periods of three years each.

This Agreement may be terminated by either Party upon six months written notice to the other Party.

Article IXThe Parties shall meet within one year after the date of the signing of this Agreement to review the implementation of its terms. Similar consultations shall be held thereafter annually, or more frequently as the Parties may decide.

Article XThe Parties shall designate members to form a Committee which will consider specific measures in conformity with this Agreement. The Committee will, as a particular part of its work, consider the practical workability of concrete fixed distances to be observed in encounters between ships, aircraft, and ships and aircraft. The Committee will meet within six months of the date of signature of this Agreement and submit its recommendations for decision by the Parties during the consultations prescribed in Article IX.

DONE in duplicate on the 25th day of May 1972 in Moscow in the English and Russian languages each being equally authentic.

FOR THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:

John W. Warner

Secretary of the Navy

FOR THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS:

Sergei G. Gorshkov

Commander-in-Chief of the Navy

Protocol to the Agreement Between the Government of The United States of America and the Government of The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the Prevention of Incidents On and Over the High Seas Signed May 25, 1972

Signed at Washington May 22, 1973
Entered into force May 22, 1973

The Government of the United States of America and the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, herein referred to as the Parties,

Having agreed on measures directed to improve the safety of navigation of the ships of their respective armed forces on the high seas and flight of their military aircraft over the high seas,

Recognizing that the objectives of the Agreement may be furthered by additional understandings, in particular concerning actions of naval ships and military aircraft with respect to the non-military ships of each Party,

Further agree as follows:

Article IThe Parties shall take measures to notify the non-military ships of each Party on the provisions of the Agreement directed at securing mutual safety.

Article IIShips and aircraft of the Parties shall not make simulated attacks by aiming guns, missile launchers, torpedo tubes and other weapons at non-military ships of the other Party, nor launch nor drop any objects near non-military ships of the other Party in such a manner as to be hazardous to these ships or to constitute a hazard to Navigation.

Article III

This Protocol will enter into force on the day of its signing and will be considered as an integral part of the Argument between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the Prevention of Incidents On and Over the High Seas which was signed in Moscow on May 25, 1972.

DONE on the 22nd of May, 1973 in Washington, in two copies, each in the English and the Russian language, both texts having the same force.

FOR THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:

J.P. Weinel

Vice Admiral, U.S. Navy

FOR THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS:

Alekseyev, Admiral

Belgium Knew of the Network, Europe Knew

Posted on April 12, 2016April 12, 2016 by Denise Simon

Note: There is the same movement in America but who gets that memo?

This website published an item last month on a very closely related movement in Belgium and honestly across Europe, the Shariah4 movement.

In fact this movement is at least 5 years old.

—- [Hot Issue] The Zerkani Network: Belgium’s Most Dangerous Jihadist Group // Terrorism Monitor – The Jamestown Foundation

In recent months, there have been key developments and insights regarding the notable number of Belgians fighting in Syria and Iraq. A recruitment organization whose existence was unearthed during a series of trials turned out to be one of the most active; the direct implication of the so-called Zerkani network in the Brussels and Paris attacks also makes it the most dangerous one. This analysis serves as an update to my May 2015 article in Terrorism Monitor “How Belgium Became a Top Exporter of Jihad,â and points out significant differences with other Belgian jihadist networks, as well as uncovers the nuances of their links with one another (Terrorism Monitor, May 29, 2015).

About a year ago, the neo-Islamist movement Shariah4Belgium was invariably named as the most significant factor behind the tremendous number of Belgian fighters in the Syrian-Iraqi conflict (Terrorism Monitor, May 29, 2015). According to the latest estimates, that figure can be as high as 589 by now. With 80 of the militants clearly linked to Shariah4Belgium, the networkâs importance remains. The Zerkani network comes close, however. Hardly known twelve months ago, the Zerkani network appears to have sent at least 59 people to the jihad in Syria and Iraq (Pieter Van Ostaeyen, April 3). Three of these Zerkani jihadists have played a direct role in Europe’s latest terrorist attacks: Abdelhamid Abaaoud and Chakib Akrouh were perpetrators in Paris, while Najim Laachraoui participated in Brussels and is also suspected of being the bomb maker for both plots (Emmejihad, March 22).

The Zerkani Networkâs Origins

The Zerkani network is named after Khalid Zerkani, a 42-year-old Moroccan who was living in the Brussels municipality of Molenbeek. Before sentencing him to twelve yearsâ imprisonment on July 29 of last year, the judge described him as a “cynical guru.” According to the written judgment of the trial, Zerkani not only indoctrinated very young people up to the point where they were willing to sacrifice themselves, but also encouraged them to commit a slew of petty crimes in order to pay for their journey to death. [1] Though practicing Muslims are not allowed to steal from another, theft among the Zerkani network was whitewashed as taking âghanimaââ the spoils of war. That principle is said to have been introduced into the network by Reda Kriket, a Frenchman living in Belgium who was arrested shortly after the Brussels attacks on suspicion of yet another terrorist plot (Marianne, March 25).

It is not entirely clear whether Zerkani himself has ever been part of the terrorist plots in which his recruits had a role. It is possible that he only aimed at recruiting for a war abroad. The Belgian terrorists responsible for attacking the West after he recruited them may well have been selected and groomed for their deadly European missions behind Zerkani’s back. There are strong indications however, that Zerkani also plotted for that kind of action. As early as 2012, conversations about the need of attacks in the West were overheard by Belgian security services during a meeting in which he took part (Emmejihad, January 26). Moreover, Zerkani did not only recruit for the Syrian jihad; prior, he was linked to at least seven people convicted in Belgium for their cooperation with al-Shabaab, the al-Qaeda-linked terrorist organization based in Somalia. [2]

Zerkaniâs Key Social Ties

Fatima Aberkan, a 55-year-old mother who has sent four of her own sons to the Syrian jihad, was convicted at the same trial as Zerkani. The judge described her as the âpasionaria of the jihad,â highlighting her enormous role in both the indoctrination of recruits and in organizing the logistics of their departure to war. Fatima Aberkan used to be the closest friend of Malika El Aroud, Europe’s most notorious female terror convict to date (Marie Claire, May 15, 2009). It was Aberkan who served as a go-between (with her e-mail address [email protected], to be more precise) for El Aroud and the latter’s second husband, Moez Garsallaoui, after his departure from Belgium in 2007 to become a high ranking member of al-Qaeda in the Afghan-Pakistani border zone. Aberkan was also responsible for providing Nizar Trabelsiâwho was convicted for plotting against the U.S. Air Force base in the Belgian town of Kleine Brogel and later rendered to the U.S.âwith a mobile phone in prison, adding to existing suspicions of a plot to set him free. [3]

Aberkan’s brother Abdelhouaid, was also convicted as a member of Zerkani’s network, notably for his role in the 2001 assassination of the Afghan anti-Taliban commander, Ahmed Shah Massoud. He was responsible for driving El Aroud’s first husband, Dahmane Abd al-Satter, to the airport for the assassination, which was a suicide mission, and was considered to be preparation for the 9/11 attacks in the U.S. (LeMonde, April 19, 2005).

While Abdelhouaid Aberkan was convicted in Belgium for his part in the assassination of Commander Massoud, another person linked to the Zerkani network was tried in France for the same charge. Abderrahmane Ameuroud, 38, was arrested at a tram stop in the Brussels municipality of Schaarbeek on March 25 of this year, and was then shot in the leg. He is suspected of being part of a terrorist plot for which fellow Zerkani network member, Reda Kriket, had amassed an unprecedented amount of arms and explosives (LibÃ©ration, March 30). According to the French-Algerian journalist Mohamed Sifaoui, Ameuroud is the youngest of three brothers who all have escalated their lawbreaking habits from petty crimes to Islamic terrorism (Twitter, March 26). Abderrahmane’s brother Reda was expulsed by France for radical sermons he held in a Paris mosque, while Abderrahmane is said to be a veteran of al-Qaeda’s training camps and was named a recruiter for the previous Iraqi jihad more than ten years ago (LeParisien, July 29, 2005).

Zerkani Network vs. Shariah4Belgium

Zerkani’s modus operandi could hardly differ more from that of Shariah4Belgium. The latter was notorious for its highly visible actions, such as public demonstrations and preaching sessions in crowded shopping streets. Zerkani’s organization had no website, no logo, and no distinctive name. Recruiting was done under the guise of offering community sporting activities, while further indoctrination happened in old-fashioned backrooms. While Shariah4Belgium’s leader Fouad Belkacem participated in televised debates and disseminated his sermons via YouTube, even the grainiest picture of Zerkani is extremely hard to locate. Zerkani was always sure to use someone elseâs phone while calling abroad, and conversely, he had others in his network carry his phone to avoid being traced and geo-located. According to the court judgment mentioned above, Zerkaniâs wariness supplemented the belief that he was trained in the famous Afghan-Pakistani terrorist camps, âas unconfirmed reports claim.â [4]

While most of the people Shariah4Belgium recruited between 2012 and the first months of 2014 were incorporated in the local militia âMajlis Shura al-Mujahideenâ of the Syrian commander Amr al-Absi, Zerkani’s early recruits landed within the âKatibat al-Muhajireen,â which was led at the time by the ethnic-Chechen commander Tarkhan Batirashvili, better known as Abu Omar al-Shishani. Both groups were based in the outskirts of Aleppo and cooperated with one another, meaning that Belgian fighters of both networks interacted with each other regularly. Soon after the establishment of the so-called Islamic State (IS), al-Absi and al-Shishani pledged allegiance to the IS leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. But as was the case with the Shariah4Belgium recruits, several Zerkani members instead joined rival Jabhat al-Nusra, also known as al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria. What happened later in terms of individual affiliations is difficult to ascertain, though it appears most of the Zerkani recruits finally joined the Islamic Stateâsimilar to the many Shariah4Belgium members who had joined IS before them.

A remarkable characteristic of the Antwerp-based and mainly Dutch-speaking Shariah4Belgium is that it ostensibly lacked any link with older networks of the Belgian jihad. Apart from a few links with the remnants of the âGroupe Islamique Combattant Marocainâ (GICM), Shariah4Belgium does not seem rooted in Belgium’s extremist past (Emmejihad, June 7, 2014). This could not be more different from the Zerkani network, which operates almost exclusively in French-speaking circles in Brussels.

Although Shariah4Belgium and the Zerkani network have their dissimilarities, they are connected to a certain degree. The recent arrest of Shariah4Belgium convict Bilal El Makhoukhi, 27, in connection to the Brussels attacks, may have resulted from members of both networks having met each other at the Syrian front (De Redactie, April 9) as well as in Belgium. The man at the intersection of the two groups is Jean-Louis Denis, 41. He ran his own recruitment cell for the Syrian jihad, posing as a benefactor distributing food to the homeless near the Brussels âGare du Nordâ railway station. Denis was sentenced to ten years in jail in January 2016 for these charges (Le Soir, January 29). According to the outcome of this trial, he not only publicly declared himself to be the leader of the Brussels chapter of Shariah4Belgium, but even claimed to be in the running to replace its overall leader, Fouad Belkacem, after Belkacemâs arrest in June 2012. [5]

Denis was particularly successful as a recruiter, attracting people who wanted to join the jihad from as far as Martinique. However, he lacked the necessary contacts to get his recruits across Syrian borders. Therefore, he often relied on the social network structures that Zerkani had built. Based upon evidence presented at his trial, it was Denisâs lieutenant, Mohamed Khemir, 37, who served as most important go-between. At least once, Khemir accompanied Zerkani when he brought a young French recruit to the Brussels airport to travel to Syria. Zerkani, Khemir, and Denis were often present at the same meetings, and little by little, both groups almost seemed to merge. In the end, Denisâs entourage looked more like a chapter of Zerkani’s network than as a part of Shariah4Belgium, but left behind a significant number of jihadists who were influenced by both. [6]

Conclusion

Hardly known a year ago, Belgium’s Zerkani network has now been revealed to be the country’s most dangerous jihadist group. Led by the enigmatic Moroccan, Khalid Zerkani, it has sent at least 59 recruits to Syria and Iraq. Most of them have ended up within the terrorist group Islamic State, and at least three have returned to Western Europe to commit the deadly Paris and Brussels terrorist attacks. The modus operandi of the network differs greatly from that of Shariah4Belgium, the more renowned and equally as significant group fueling the high number of Belgian jihadists, though connections between the groupsâboth in Belgium and in the battlefieldâare undoubtedly present.

Guy Van Vlierden is a journalist for the Belgian newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws, specializing in issues relating to terrorist and extremism.

Notes:

[1] Judgment of the ‘Tribunal de PremiÃ¨re Instance Francophone de Bruxelles’ issued on July 29, 2015 – in the possession of the author.

[2] Mentioned in the judgment of July 29, 2015 – cfr. Supra

[3] Mentioned in Italian court papers in the possession of the author; Mentioned in the judgment of July 29, 2015 – cfr. Supra.

[4] Mentioned in the judgment of July 29, 2015 – cfr. Supra.

[5] Judgment of the Tribunal de PremiÃ¨re Instance Francophone de Bruxelles issued at January 29, 2016 – in the possession of the author.

[6] All details mentioned in the judgment of January 29, 2016 – cfr. Supra.

Venezuela, There She Blows

Posted on April 10, 2016April 10, 2016 by Denise Simon

Statement of Secretary Lew on the Venezuela Executive Order
3/9/2015

U.S.Treasury: We are committed to defending human rights and advancing democratic governance in Venezuela through the use of financial sanctions.

We will use these tools to target those persons involved in violence against anti-government protesters, serious human rights abuses, and those involved in the arrest or prosecution of individuals for their legitimate exercise of free speech.

Corrupt actions by Venezuelan government officials deprive Venezuela of needed economic resources that could be invested in the Venezuelan people and used to spur economic growth. These actions also undermine the public trust in democratic institutions and the human rights to which Venezuelan citizens are entitled. This Executive Order will be used to protect the U.S. financial system from the illicit financial flows from public corruption in Venezuela.

Beginning in 2013, perhaps earlier:

Venezuela is running out of money fast and has started selling its gold

CNN: The cash-strapped country could default by next year when lots of debt payments are due. Venezuela’s reserves, which are mostly made up of gold, have fallen sharply this year as the country needs cash to pay off debt and tries to maintain its social welfare programs.

Venezuela owes about $15.8 billion in debt payments between now and the end of 2016.

But it doesn’t have enough to make good on its payments. Venezuela only has $15.2 billion in foreign reserves — the lowest amount since 2003. A lot of those reserves are in gold.

Less than $1 billion of Venezuela’s reserves are in cash, and it has a couple billion in reserves at the IMF.

Venezuela risks a descent into chaos

©AFP

Police arrest students during a protest against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in San Cristobal. Two officers died and four more were hurt

FT: At the main morgue of central Caracas, the stench forces everyone to cover their nostrils. “Now things are worse than ever,” says Yuli Sánchez. “They kill people and no one is punished while families have to keep their pain to themselves.”

Ms Sánchez’s 14-year-old nephew, Oliver, was shot five times by malandros, or thugs, while riding on the back of a friend’s motorcycle. His uncle, Luis Mejía, remarked that in a fortnight three members of their family had been shot, including two youths who were shot by police.

An economic, social and political crisis facing Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s unpopular president, is being aggravated by a rise in violence which is prompting fears that this oil-rich country risks becoming a failed state.

“What can we do?” Mr Mejía asks. “Give up.” The morgue employee in charge of handling the corpses notes that a decade ago he received seven or eight bodies every weekend. These days, he says, that number has risen to between 40 and 50: “This is now wilder than the wild west.”

Critics say that the Venezuelan government is increasingly unable to provide citizens with water, electricity, health or a functioning economy which can supply basic food staples or indispensable medicines, let alone personal safety.

Last month alone, Venezuelans learned of the summary execution of at least 17 gold miners supposedly by a mining Mafia, the killing of two police officers allegedly by a group of students who drove a bus into a barricade, and a hostage drama inside a prison at the hands of a grenade-wielding criminal gang. On Wednesday, three policemen were killed when an armed gang busted a member out of a lock-up in the capital.

At least 10 were killed in a Caracas shanty town after a confrontation between local thugs armed with assault rifles, while a local mayor was gunned down outside his home in Trujillo state last month. There are widespread reports of lynchings.

All this is creating a broad unease that Mr Maduro is unable to maintain order. Venezuela has the world’s fastest inflation and its dire recession is worsening. Mr Maduro last week declared every Friday a holiday for the next two months to save electricity as a prolonged drought has exacerbated chronic power shortages. There is a lack of basic goods. Analysts warn that the economic crisis risks turning in to a humanitarian one.

The evidence of state failure is very concrete in the country that sits on top of the world’s largest oil reserves– Moisés Naím, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

“Failed state is a nebulous concept often used too lightly. That’s not the case with today’s Venezuela,” says Moisés Naím a Venezuelan distinguished fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “The evidence of state failure is very concrete in the country that sits on top of the world’s largest oil reserves.”

Venezuela is already one of the world’s deadliest countries. The Venezuelan Observatory of Violence, a local think-tank, says the murder rate rose last year to 92 killings per 100,000 residents. The attorney-general cites a lower figure of 58 homicides per 100,000.

In 1998, a year before former leader Hugo Chávez took office, the rate was 19 per 100,000, says the think-tank’s director Roberto Briceño León, adding that after 17 years of socialist “revolution”, it is the poor who make up most of the victims.

Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela's president, gestures while speaking at a rally to commemorate the 24th anniversary of former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's failed military coup in Caracas, Venezuela, on Thursday, Feb. 4, 2016

©Bloomberg

“I think it is evident that the Venezuelan state cannot act as a state in many areas of the country, so it could be considered failed,” says Mr Briceño, adding that the state now “lacks a monopoly on violence”.

But the state is indeed to blame for some of that violence, according to a report by advocacy groups Human Rights Watch and the Venezuelan Human Rights Education-Action Programme presented to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

“Venezuelans are facing one of the highest murder rates in the hemisphere and urgently need effective protection from violent crime,” said José Miguel Vivanco HRW’s Americas director. “But in multiple raids throughout the country, the security forces themselves have allegedly committed serious abuses.”

Their findings show that police and military raids in low-income and immigrant communities in Venezuela have led to widespread allegations of abuse, including extrajudicial killings, mass arbitrary detentions, maltreatment of detainees, forced evictions, the destruction of homes, and arbitrary deportations.

Country’s bitter power struggle reflects institutional weakness across the region

The government usually blames violence within its borders on Colombian rightwing paramilitaries engaged in a war against its revolution. But as David Smilde and Hugo Pérez Hernáiz of the Washington Office on Latin America, a think-tank, recently wrote: “Attributing violence in Venezuela to paramilitary activity has been a common rhetorical move used by the government over the past year, effectively making a citizen security problem into a national security problem.”

For many Venezuelans it no longer matters who is to blame. “It is a state policy of letting anarchy sink in,” says a former policeman outside the gates of a compound in Caracas.

That former police station now houses the Frente 5 de Marzo, one of the political groups that consider themselves the keepers of socialism’s sacred flame. The gates bear the colours of the Venezuelan flag and are marked with bullet holes. The man believes there is something akin to a civil war going on.

“Venezuela is pure chaos now. It seems to me there is no way back,” he says.

****

Iran has been outsourcing for many years and that includes to Iran:

Iran’s ambassador to Venezuela said Tuesday that a check worth about $70 million, found by German authorities in the luggage of Iran’s former central bank chief, was going to be used by an Iranian company for its expenses while building public housing in Venezuela.

Iranian Ambassador Hojattolah Soltani made the remarks in an interview with the Venezuelan television channel Globovision, saying the check for 300 million Venezuelan bolivars was to be used for the expenses of the Kayson Company, a Tehran-based construction business that is building thousands of homes for the Venezuelan government.

The Iranian ambassador noted that the man with the check whom German authorities stopped last month is not currently a government official. Soltani said that Tahmasb Mazaheri, a former chief of Iran’s central bank and former economy minister, has been working as an adviser to the Iranian company.

Venezuelan authorities had to comment on the issue, and stressed that everything was above board (link is external). The Iranian Ambassador to Caracas would later recant his opinion, as cited by AP above, saying about the caught check-courier (link is external) “[he] is by no means an official of the Government (of Iran); neither has his name been affixed to the confiscated check”, and adding that the check “was signed in Iran and Mr. Mazaheri was on his way to Venezuela to bring the check to cash it in Banco Venezuela.”

So Mazaheri, who is not an official of the Government of Iran as per Iran’s Ambassador to Venezuela claims, was entrusted to carry a check worth $70 million, just like that? Mazaheri was a director of Banco Internacional de Desarrollo (link is external), an OFAC-designated entity targeted by the U.S. Treasury Department “for providing or attempting to provide financial services to Iran’s Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics (MODAFL). (link is external)” The European Union also included the bank in its list of sanctioned entities involved in “nuclear or ballistic missiles activities

– See more at: http://infodio.com/250414/venezuela/corruption/kayson/tahmasb/mazaheri#sthash.8z4z99bY.dpuf

North Korea Threat Real or Sorta Real?

Posted on April 7, 2016April 7, 2016 by Denise Simon

Analysts remain sceptical of North Korea’s nuclear strike claims

Janes: Photos released by North Korean official news outlet Rodong Sinmun on 9 March showed the country’s leader, Kim Jong-un, meeting the country’s nuclear technicians at what could be a KN-08 (Hwasong-13) intercontinental ballistic missile production facility near Jonchon in the country’s northern Chaggang province.

The accompanying article said Kim was congratulating his nuclear weapon scientists for having developed a miniaturised nuclear warhead: a claim being met with scepticism by various Western analysts.

The photos and article came two days after Pyongyang threatened its South Korean neighbours with a pre-emptive nuclear strike for the 7 March initiation of joint exercises ‘Foal Eagle’ and ‘Key Resolve’: the largest set of manoeuvres ever conducted with US forces in the region, in which around 17,000 US troops are exercising alongside some 300,000 South Korean military personnel.

In the week prior to the beginning of the exercises, Pyongyang’s KCNA state news agency quoted Kim as saying that North Korea’s “nuclear warheads need to be ready for use at any time”.

Various security policy think-tanks have accused Washington and its South Korean allies of raising tensions on the Korean peninsula, calling the exercises ill-advised. Stephan Haggard from the School of Global Policy and Strategy at University of California, San Diego, who authors a blog on North Korea, told news sites like CNN, “I didn’t see the logic of expanding the exercises. I personally think that upping the sizes of the exercises didn’t serve any material function. It’s not clear that the size will bring North Korea back to the diplomatic table, so there’s no real purpose to do that. All you’ve done is stir the viper’s nest.”

Specialists on North Korea’s defence capabilities and internal politics dismiss these criticisms of the US-South Korean manoeuvres, arguing that such condemnation ignores the realities of the immediate objectives of North Korea’s nuclear programme and the nature of the regime’s internal political intrigue.

(CNN)The North Korea monitoring project 38 North says that satellite imagery shows “suspicious activity” at a nuclear enrichment site in North Korea.

Plumes of exhaust steam, a byproduct of heating the main plant at the Yongbyon Radiochemical Laboratory complex, have been seen in commercial satellite images taken March 12 and over the preceding five weeks, the group says.

This activity is unusual, the report by the Washington-based project says.

“Exhaust plumes have rarely been seen there and none have been observed on any examined imagery this past winter,” the report says.

Weeks away?

The plumes of steam do not necessarily indicate that the process for refining plutonium for nuclear weapons is underway or will be soon, the report says.

It does, however, note that U.S. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper recently testified that Pyongyang had “announced its intention to ‘refurbish and restart’ its nuclear facilities,” including the uranium enrichment facility at Yongbyon, and that it could be able to recover plutonium from the reactor’s spent fuel “within a matter of weeks to months.”

Separate images appear to show further work on the site’s Experimental Light Water Reactor, a key facility for the enrichment of nuclear fuel, is ongoing, with a new transformer yard and road built, and the installation of electrical cables completed. More here.