Refugee Admissions Into U.S. Plunge 83% In First Two Months Of FY18

As monthly refugee admissions into the United States lap the last few months of Obama"s administration, the stark changes enacted by the Trump White House are more apparent than ever with admissions down a staggering 83% in the first two months of fiscal 2018 (October and November) compared to the first two months of fiscal 2017.

As CNS News points out, a total of only 3,108 refugees were admitted in October and November down from the 18,300 refugees who were admitted in October and November of last year.

The most striking change between the refugee admissions in the initial two-month period of this fiscal year and last fiscal year was the relative differences in size of the contingents from Syria, Somalia and Iraq.

In Oct.-Nov. 2016, 2,259 Syrians (97.6 percent Muslim, 1.7 percent Christian), 2,463 Somalis (99.9 percent Muslim) and 2,262 Iraqis (75 percent Muslim, 17.3 percent Christian, 7.4 percent Yazidi) were resettled.

 

In Oct.-Nov. 2017 the numbers had dropped to 33 Syrians (66.6 percent Muslim, 33.3 percent Christian), 126 Somalis (100 percent Muslim) and 76 Iraqis (84.2 percent Muslim, 10.5 percent Christian, 3.9 percent Yazidi).

 

Among the 3,108 refugees admitted since FY 2018 began, the five largest contingents came from Bhutan (805), the Democratic Republic of Congo (627), Burma (347), Ukraine (290) and Eritrea (281).

 

The religious breakdown of those 3,108 refugees was: 59.6 percent Christian, 15.4 percent Muslim, 9.6 percent Buddhist, 7.6 percent Hindu, 4.7 percent Kirat and 0.9 percent Jewish.

 

By contrast, the five countries represented most strongly among the 18,300 refugees resettled by the Obama administration in the U.S. during the first two months of FY 2017 were the DRC (4,236), Somalia (2,463), Iraq (2,262), Syria (2,259) and Burma (1,509).

 

The religious breakdown of those 18,300 refugees was: 48.1 percent Christian, 43.6 percent Muslim, 2.4 percent Buddhist, 1.7 percent Hindu, 0.9 percent Kirat and 0.3 percent Jewish.

Meanwhile, fourteen months after the Obama administration backed a push at the U.N. for global responsibility-sharing for refugees and migrants, the Trump Administration has pulled out of the initiative with U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley saying it “is simply not compatible with U.S. sovereignty.”

Now the administration is also withdrawing from a U.N. initiative called the Global Compact on Migration.

 

In a statement Sunday, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the U.S. would continue to engage at the U.N. but in this case it “simply cannot in good faith support a process that could undermine the sovereign right of the United States to enforce our immigration laws and secure our borders.”

 

“The United States supports international cooperation on migration issues, but it is the primary responsibility of sovereign states to help ensure that migration is safe, orderly, and legal.”

 

Haley said Sunday the New York declaration “contains numerous provisions that are inconsistent with U.S. immigration and refugee policies and the Trump administration’s immigration principles.”

 

She said no country has done more that the U.S. in providing support for migrant and refugee populations across the globe, “and our generosity will continue.”

 

“But our decisions on immigration policies must always be made by Americans and Americans alone,” she said. “We will decide how best to control our borders and who will be allowed to enter our country.”

Of course, it"s just a matter of time until Chuck Schumer and/or Nancy Pelosi tell us that Trump"s efforts to not outsource decisions regarding American sovereignty to the U.N. is just more evidence of the inherent racism plaguing the current administration.

SEC Files First-Ever Civil Fraud Charges Against ICO Companies

That didn"t take long.

After issuing a ruling in July that officially declared that the tokens sold during initial coin offerings must be registered as securities - a ruling that many hoped would lend a badly needed veneer of legitimacy to the shady ICO market - the SEC is following through with what we imagine will be the first of many civil actions against ICOs and the individuals who launch them.

The agency on Friday announced civil actions against two companies and their founder, businessman Maksim Zaslavskiy, for violating anti-fraud and registration provisions of federal securities laws after misleading investors in a pair of so-called initial coin offerings (ICOs) purportedly backed by investments in real estate and diamonds.

It"s important to remember that this is civil complaint - the SEC doesn"t have the power to make arrests; to do that, it must work in tandem with the FBI. Zaslavskiy is a free man. However, his assets - and those belonging to his companies - have been frozen. Instead, the agency is seeking to permanently ban Zaslavskiy from participating in any future digital-currency offerings, along with what we imagine will be hefty fines.

In its press release, the SEC accused Maksim Zaslavskiy and his companies of selling unregistered securities, while also alleging that the digital tokens or coins he was peddling didn"t really exist. According to the SEC"s complaint, investors in REcoin Group Foundation and DRC World (also known as Diamond Reserve Club) were told (presumably by Zaslavskiy) that they could expect sizeable returns from the companies" operations, when neither had any real operations to speak of.

As we"ve previously reported, the ICO market has exploded since late last year. The total sum raised has already reached $1.3 billion, with more expected by year"s end. However, the ease with which unscrupulous people could fraudulently market their tokens (and earn big money) has attracted attention from regulators all over the world. China cited fears about abuses related to ICOs as the reason for shuttering all local digital-currency exchanges. Russia briefly flirted with the idea as well.

Earlier today, FINMA, the Swiss government body responsible for regulating markets, said it was investigating several ICOs for possible fraud. In its press release announcing the investigations, the regulator explained that because ICOs are structured in a similar way to traditional stock offerings, they fall under the agency"s purview. So every time it has received a complaint related to ICOS, its representatives have pursued that complaint.

To the best of our knowledge, these are the first indications that any official regulatory action is being taken against ICO purveyors in either the US or Switzerland.

In its civil complaint, the SEC alleges that "from July 2017 to the present, Zaslavskiy, the President and sole owner of the Companies, fraudulently raised at least $300,000 from hundreds of investors, through various material misrepresentations and deceptive acts relating to supposed investments in digital “tokens” or “coins” offered, first by REcoin, then by Diamond, during the ICOs."

Zaslavskiy allegedly touted REcoin as "The First Ever Cryptocurrency Backed by Real Estate."  Alleged misstatements to REcoin investors included that the company had a "team of lawyers, professionals, brokers, and accountants" that would invest REcoin"s ICO proceeds into real estate when in fact none had been hired or even consulted. Zaslavskiy and REcoin allegedly misrepresented they had raised between $2 million and $4 million from investors when the actual amount is approximately $300,000.

Zaslavskiy then carried his scheme over to Diamond Reserve Club. He marketed the organization as one that invests in diamonds and obtains discounts with product retailers for individuals who purchase "memberships" in the company. Despite their representations to investors, the SEC alleges that Zaslavskiy and Diamond have not purchased any diamonds nor engaged in any business operations. Yet they allegedly continue to solicit investors and raise funds as though they have.

Read the rest of the complaint below:

2017.09.29icocomplaint by zerohedge on Scribd

 

Mapping The World's 20 Most Populous Cities By 2100

If you look at a modern map of the world’s most populous cities, you’ll notice that they are quite evenly distributed around the globe.

Metropolises like Moscow, New York, Tokyo, Cairo, or Rio de Janeiro are spread apart with very different geographic and cultural settings, and practically every continent today can claim at least one of the world’s 20 most populous cities.

However, as Visual Capitalist"s Jeff Desjardins notes, in the future, things will be very different, according to projections from the Global Cities Institute. In fact, over the next 80 years or so, some cities will literally 10x or 20x in size – turning into giant megacities that have comparable populations to entire countries like modern-day Germany, France, or the United Kingdom.

The most interesting part? None of these cities will be in the Americas, Europe, China, or Australia.

Source: Visual Capitalist

The Top Four Megacities of the Future

According to predictions from the Global Cities Institute, these will be the biggest cities in the world in 2100:

Lagos is already one of the biggest metropolises in Africa, and we previously noted that it was one of the fastest growing cities in the world.

In fact, it’s growing so fast, that no one knows how big it actually is. The U.N estimated it had 11.2 million people in 2011, and the year after The New York Times said it had at least 21 million inhabitants. In any case, this Nigerian metropolis is growing like a weed, and the Global Cities Institute estimates that the city’s population will hit the 88.3 million mark by 2100 to make it the biggest city in the world.

The city is already a center of West African trade and finance – but Lagos has ambitious plans to up the ante even further. Right now, the city is building Eko Atlantic, a massive new residential and commercial development that is being pitched as the “Manhattan of Nigeria”. It’s just off of Victoria Island, and it is being built on reclaimed land with special measures in place to prevent flooding from global warming.

When people think of the DRC, sprawling metropolises generally aren’t the first things that come to mind.

But Kinshasa, once the site of humble fishing villages, has already likely passed Paris as the largest French-speaking city in the world. And it’s getting bigger – by 2100, it’s projected to be the world’s second largest city overall.

How Kinshasa develops will certainly be interesting. As it stands, approximately 60% of the 17 million people living there by 2025 will be younger than 18 years old. How the city deals with education will be paramount to the city’s future progression.

Have you heard of Dar Es Salaam, the Tanzanian megacity that will hold 73.7 million inhabitants in 2100?

It’s not on a lot of people’s radars, but its population will explode 1,588% to become the third largest city in Africa, and in the world.

Interestingly, East Africa will be home to many of the world’s biggest cities in the future – and many will be seemingly popping up out of nowhere. Consider Blantyre City, Lilongwe, and Lusaka, for example. Most Westerners will not likely have heard of these places, but these centers in Malawi and Zambia will each hold over 35 million people.

Finally, the last city to round out the top four is Mumbai, which is already one of the world’s biggest megacities with over 20 million people.

As the entertainment capital of India, it will be interesting to see how Mumbai evolves – and how it ends up comparing to other Indian megacities like Delhi and Kolkata, which each will hold over 50 million residents themselves.

Ebola Spreading: Infections Up 800% In Last Week, Officials Race To Track Down 400 Possible Contacts

Authored by Mac Slavco via SHTFplan.com,

Last week three suspected Ebola infections were detected in a remote region of the Congo. Since then, World Health Organization officials have been scrambling to contain the virus.

Their efforts appear to have failed.

The contagion continues to spread, and though it’s nowhere near the 11,000 people who were infected during the outbreak in 2014, the infection rate has spiked over 800% in just the last seven days, with at least nine new cases reported in the last 24 hours:

The number of suspected cases of Ebola has risen to 29 from nine in less than a week in an isolated part of Democratic Republic of Congo, where three people have died from the disease since April 22, the World Health Organization said on Thursday.

 

…

 

The risk from the outbreak is “high at the national level,” the W.H.O. said, because the disease was so severe and was spreading in a remote area in northeastern Congo with “suboptimal surveillance” and limited access to health care.

 

“Risk at the regional level is moderate due to the proximity of international borders and the recent influx of refugees from Central African Republic,” the organization said, but it nonetheless described the global risk as low because the area is so remote. (NY Times)

The 2014 outbreak likewise started in a remote region of Africa, but containment efforts were ineffective and the virus eventually spread to the United States and Europe.

***

According to W.H.O., about 400 people have come into contact with the 29 people infected and officials are attempting to track them down for monitoring.

Protective gear has been dispatched to health workers and a mobile lab is being constructed and then deployed to the area. Immediate repairs to air strips and telecommunications are also being carried out. The first six months of the operation are expected to cost $10 million…

 

…

 

With the help of the UN, the first search teams, led by the DRC’s Ministry of Health, flew into Likati yesterday. Their immediate priority is to follow the 400 plus contacts of the suspected Ebola cases. (U.N. News Centre)

As we learned in 2014, all it takes is one infected individual to make it through an airport checkpoint.

With international travel via airports, trains and cars available throughout the region, a single infected individual on an airplane could infect scores of others, who in turn could infect scores more.

The following Ebola model from Yaneer Bar-Yam, who has successfully simulated and predicted such events as the rise of the Arab Spring, shows how an Ebola contagion may look.

The above model is based on Ebola’s current infection rates and doesn’t take into account its possible evolution as it spreads from human-to-human.

According to scientists, the 2014 strain began hyper-evolving, to the point that had it not been contained and continued to spread through human contact, it could have gone airborne, making it as easy to catch as a common cold.

In response to this unprecedented threat, US government officials began preparing for mass casualties, reportedly going so far as to develop plans for Community Care Centers where infected individuals, or those suspected of infections, would be detained indefinitely.

As the Ebola contagion spread across the globe, the panicked populace rushed to stockpile emergency supplies like freeze dried foods, bio-protective body suits and gas masks.

The concern, of course, was that a virus with a 90% fatality rate after infection would make its way to local American communities. As Tess Pennington notes in her Pandemic Preparedness Guide, once it’s within 50 miles of where you live, it’s time to worry and take immediate steps to isolate your family from the threat, because most people won’t realize how serious of a situation they are in:

Looking back at the Black Plague, those living in high populated areas were hit hardest by this pandemic.  The Black Death is estimated to have killed 30–60 percent of Europe’s population. Given our vast array of transportation systems, modern society causes infectious disease to spread far more rapidly compared to any other time in recorded history; and because pandemics are fast moving, vaccinations would be useless. Further, in regards to the world’s transportation system, the morbidity rate in a future pandemic could result in millions seeking medical care at the same time thus overwhelming hospitals and emergency departments.

…

When an outbreak occurs, many will remain in a state of denial about any approaching epidemics. Simply put, most people believe themselves to be invincible to negative situations and do not like the idea change of any kind. They will remain in this state until they realize they are unable to deny it to themselves any longer. Being prepared before the mass come out of their daze will ensure that you are better prepared before the hoards run to the store to stock up.

Perhaps containment procedures being implemented in the Congo by W.H.O. will be more effective this time around than they were in 2014.

But what if they’re not? What if the virus mutates and goes airborne?

Plan accordingly.