Iran Vows ‘Severe Consequences’ If US Backs Out Of Nuclear Deal

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani told a cheering crowd of thousands Tuesday that if any country decides to betray the 2015 nuclear deal, there will be “severe consequences.”  Although Rouhani didn’t specifically name the United States, he did say that Tehran is “prepared for all possible situations.”

The New York Times reported that Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel will work to convince Donald Trump to stay in the agreement at a meeting later this week.  And in the meantime, French president Emmanuel Macron is diligently working on swaying Trump’s mind on the issue as well.  Both European leaders want the US to stick to the 2015 nuclear deal put in place by Barack Obama.

Wendy R. Sherman, the former top official at the State Department who negotiated the deal for then-President Obama, told the paper that Trump and Macron are likely having a “very difficult conversation,” reported Fox News. “I’m sure that Macron will say how important staying in the deal is to a strong trans-Atlantic relationship in all things, particularly security,” she said.

The White House on Monday appeared to show little change in Trump’s opinion on the deal. “He thinks it’s a bad deal…that certainly has not changed,” Sarah Sanders said alluding to the possibility of rejecting the deal entirely. Trump hasn’t hidden his disdain for Obama’s 2015 nuclear deal with Iran.

Iran is playing with fire – they don"t appreciate how "kind" President Obama was to them. Not me!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 3, 2017

Iran just test-fired a Ballistic Missile capable of reaching Israel.They are also working with North Korea.Not much of an agreement we have!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 23, 2017

Trump’s tweet alone shed some light on his feelings about how things are going with Iran.  Tensions seem high, but they may go even higher on the heels of Iran’s vow of severe consequences. According to USA Today, Iran cannot be trusted to uphold their end of the nuclear agreement, however.

The key reason that President Trump must not only not recertify the Iran nuclear deal but outright abrogate it is because Tehran is explicitly and demonstrably out of compliance with the agreement on numerous specific counts. Further, after the Iranian regime was caught in 2002 operating a clandestine weapons program in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty — conduct underway for at least 14 years — and has never come clean about that program, it cannot be trusted to adhere to any other agreement. –USA Today

It appears that even some in the mainstream media are siding with Trump and asking him to withdraw from the weapons accord.  Even after inception of the agreement in 2015, the regime has been confronted with credible information that it is operating more advanced centrifuges than permitted, exceeding limits on production of heavy water and, according to Fox News, covertly procuring nuclear and missile technology outside of approved channels: These are all material breaches of the deal.

 

 

Gov’t Worldwide Cracking Down on ‘Fake News’, Writing and Even Sharing Now Leads to JAIL

These governments say that they are protecting their citizens from misinformation, but what they are really doing is protecting themselves from competition.

The post Gov’t Worldwide Cracking Down on ‘Fake News’, Writing and Even Sharing Now Leads to JAIL appeared first on The Free Thought Project.

Financial Strategist: Trade War Could Usher In Dire Financial Crisis MUCH SOONER

According to a Societe Generale strategist Albert Edwards, a trade war would bring about a financial crisis a lot sooner than anyone expected. Edwards has warned in the past that currency devaluation could spark an economic recession worse than 2008, and now he’s sounding the alarm about Donald Trump’s trade policies.

Edwards now points to the Trump administration’s trade policy as yet another catalyst that could hasten the next crisis. Recent tariffs the US imposed on steel and aluminum imports threaten a full-scale trade war, he claimed.  While tariffs and taxes always get passed onto the American consumer in the form of higher costs for goods, it is unfortunate that the tariff talk is ongoing.

The US could also turn on other trading partners as Trump continues to advance his “America First” agenda, reported the Financial Tribune. “Boiling away in the background is Germany’s, and now also the eurozone’s, outsized trade surpluses” with the US, Edwards said. He added, “Expect Trump to soon turn his protectionist fire on both Germany and the EU. That will be messy.”But there is some good news many in the mainstream media continue to ignore:

While much of what Trump is announcing today has already been leaked, here are the details of the import tariffs Donald Trump formally adopted on steel and aluminium imports which allow US allies to negotiate and apply for exemptions, a sign of the growing concern that the president was alienating America’s closest international partners, and that 2 of the 4 largest foreign suppliers of steel will be exempt. –Zerohedge

“A trade war and competitive currency devaluation was always going to be the end game in our Ice Age thesis as a global deflationary bust destroyed wealth, profits, and jobs,” Edwards said in a note on Thursday. “But it looks as if it might be arriving sooner than we had anticipated.”

China exports just 1.1% of its steel to the United States, therefore, the tariffs are considered unlikely to do any serious damage to Chinese businesses. The more immediate fuel for a trade war, Edwards said, is retaliatory action against China by the US for alleged intellectual property theft. The Nikkei Asian Review reported Wednesday that the US was set to impose tariffs on $60 billion worth of Chinese products as punishment. Yet remember, a tariff isn’t going to punish the Chinese; it will punish the American consumer as prices go up to cover the cost of the new tax.

A White House official says there will be no significant downstream price effects, and thus no significant downstream job effects, according to Zerohedge. But that expectation counters multiple statements and prognostications from several companies and industry groups that use steel and aluminum, as well as lawmakers representing them, who have warned the tariffs will harm their businesses or industries.

Certain Cars Can Be Banned From Streets, Court Rules. Total Ban By 2040?

Image source: Pixabay.com

The country where the internal combustion engine originated might be among the first to ban it.

Germany’s Federal Administrative Court ruled Tuesday that cities have the right to ban gasoline and diesel vehicles in an attempt to curb pollution.

“These vehicles have no place in our cities anymore,” Jürgen Resch, the managing director of an environmental group called Deutsche Umwelthilfe, told The New York Times. Resch’s group brought suit after German governments who had failed to take action against polluting vehicles.

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The suit demanded that German cities start enforcing air quality standards mandated by the European Union (EU), The Times reported. Enforcing those standards would require cities to ban many older diesel vehicles.

“Limited bans for certain diesel cars are within the law,” the court ruled. The Federal Administrative Court is one of the highest in Germany.

The city of Paris, which has some of the worst smog in Europe, has already banned vehicles built before 1997, Car Insurance Samurai reported. The French government wants to get rid of all gas and diesel vehicles by 2040.

Three German cities — Stuttgart, Munich and Dusseldorf — are considering banning diesel. Resch expects the first diesel bans in Germany to be enacted by fall of this year. It is not known how the ban would impact Germany’s auto industry, which has promoted diesel for decades and employs 800,000 people.

Germany was the country where the automobile was invented by Karl Benz in 1885.

“The days of flooding the inner cities with poisonous diesel emissions are over,” Resch said.

Many people around the world seem to agree with his sentiment.

City governments in Madrid and Athens want to ban diesel vehicles completely, and officials in the United Kingdom hope to ban diesel completely by 2040, The New York Times reported. The government of India wants to require all cars to be electric by 2030, CNN Money reported.

China Vice Minister of Information Zin Guobin told reporters his government wants to ban the sale of new fossil fuel burning vehicles by 2030, The Economist reported. Closer to home, Mary Nichols, the chairman of California’s Air Resources board, said she would like to see a ban on internal combustion vehicles by 2040.

What is your reaction? What it in the section below:

85 Years Ago, Hitler Carried Out a “False Flag” Showing How Gov’t Can Control With Lies and Fear

Today is the anniversary of one of the most pivotal false flags in history as Hitler burned down Reichstag and blamed it on his political enemies so he could seize total control of the country.

The post 85 Years Ago, Hitler Carried Out a “False Flag” Showing How Gov’t Can Control With Lies and Fear appeared first on The Free Thought Project.

Men From “Syria Or Afghanistan” Arrested In German New Year’s Eve Sex Attacks

This report was originally published by Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge

 

German police report 10 arrests have been made for sexual assault

following New Year’s Eve celebrations

Over a dozen arrests were made for New Year’s Eve sex attacks in Germany as women were groped in Berlin and Cologne by “predominantly young men from Syria or Afghanistan,” despite “safety areas” set up to curb sexual offenses. Meanwhile, thugs in France torched nearly 1,000 cars and brutally kicked a French policewoman in the head as other thugs filmed the attack and uploaded it to the internet.

🆘#France : Ils n"y ont pas été de mains mortes sur la policière hier soir à #Champigny .
Coups de pompes dans la tête et j"en passe .. pic.twitter.com/ZlWYIUOPuP

— -₽ – 🅣 – 🅐 – (@PorteTonAme) January 1, 2018

🆘#France : Sur un autre angle où c"est carrément un lynchage en règle de la policière .#Champigny pic.twitter.com/b5daXlOHDu

— -₽ – 🅣 – 🅐 – (@PorteTonAme) January 1, 2018

The two officers arrived at the scene of an out of control party in Champigny in the south-east Paris suburb of Champigny-sur-Marne, a 12 minute drive from the “no-go zone” in Noisy-le-Grand.

After they were attacked, the thugs ran into a nearby housing complex after destroying the patrol car – which was turned upside down. One source told the Daily Mail, “The captain had tried to defend the pair using a tear gas canister, but was badly beaten up,” adding “At one stage he produced his service weapon, but did not get a shot off. The female officer has been written off work for at least a week, while the captain will be off for at least 10 days.”

Flipped over police car, Champigny-sur-Marne (Daily Mail)

Thugs assault policewoman, Champigny-sur-Marne (Daily Mail)

The incident sparked outrage across France – prompting president Emmanuel Macron to decree that the culprits would be brought to justice, stating “Those guilty of the cowardly and criminal lynching of police doing their duty on the night of December 31st will be found and punished,” adding “Force will support the law. Honour to the police and full support to all the agents attacked in such a low level fashion.”

In Berlin, at least 13 cases of sexual assault were reported on New Year’s Eve despite a widely touted “safety area” set up by the German Red Cross at the Brandenburg Gate – intended to protect women trying to ring in the new year without getting felt up or raped.

A tweet made by the Berlin police reads (translated): “At events to #Welcome2018 in #Berlin so far unfortunately occasional sexual assaults were reported. We do not tolerate such acts. Suspects were arrested.”

Bei den Veranstaltungen zu #Welcome2018 in #Berlin wurden bislang leider vereinzelt sexuelle Übergriffe gemeldet. Solche Taten dulden wir nicht!
Es wurden Tatverdächtige festgenommen. Wir haben zivile Kolleg. auf der #Festmeile, die gegen diese Taten vorgehen.

— Polizei Berlin Einsatz (@PolizeiBerlin_E) December 31, 2017

Thomas Neuendorf, of Berlin police, told Ruptly that the victims were “groped between their legs and on their buttocks,” adding that the perpetrators were “predominantly young men from Syria or Afghanistan.”

Meanwhile in Cologne, Germany, nine women reported being inappropriately touched during New Year’s Eve celebrations, according to Police – who added that three suspects had been identified and arrested. 

German police frisk a man in front of the Central Station in Cologne (Image: EPA)

In Hamburg, “a very small number” of sexual assaults were reported, while Munich police have yet to report in. “Experience shows that such a thing [sexual assault] often emerges only one or two days later,” said a spokesman for the Munich police.

In 2015, Germany suffered the worst string of New Years Eve attacks in modern history, with over 1,500 criminal cases reported – including one in which “heavily intoxicated” men of “Arab or North African” origin were accused of attacking local women in the Cologne city center.

Automobiles in France didn’t escape the torch this year either, despite the deployment of 90,000 security forces. 945 cars were set on fire in Paris despite some 99,000 soldiers and police officers patrolling the country after two years of high-profile New Year’s Eve attacks.

According to the French interior ministry, most of the cars were either “totally destroyed” or “more lightly affected,” a 17% rise over last year’s car torchings according to The Telegraph. The custom is said to have began in Strasbourg, France in the 1990’s, in the city’s high-immigrant districts – which quickly caught on across the country.

French police arrested 454 people overnight, 301 of which were taken into custody. The French interior ministry had originally released the much lower figure of 650 cars torched, claiming “once again this year, the overall number of vehicles burned demonstrates that, however intolerable, the phenomenon is contained.”

The far-Right Front National, however, denounced what it called the government’s “extremely hazy security record”.

“The new interior minister Bruno Le Roux…(initially) didn’t communicate the number of vehicles burned and considers that the number of cars directly set on fire to be ‘contained’ while even this constitutes a significant rise” the FN said in a statement.

Torched cars, sexual assaults, and thugs beating up the police: just part of life in Europe’s new normal. Just don’t thank Angela Merkel’s “open door” policies for the outcome: you may be branded a extremist who gets their talking points from the KGB, and promptly sequestered.

Where European Populism Will Be Strongest In 2018

While the establishment may breathe a sigh of relief looking back at political developments and events in Europe - which was spared some of the supposedly "worst-case scenarios" including a Marine le Pen presidency, a Merkel loss and a Geert Wilders victory - in 2017, any victory laps will have to be indefinitely postponed because as Goldman writes in its "Top of Mind" peek at 2018, Europe"s nationalist and populist tide was just resting, and as Pascal Lamy, the former Chief of Staff to the President of the European Commission admitted earlier this year, "Euroskeptic politicians are largely following the pulse of domestic sentiment. The fact is that the public is less enthusiastic about Europe than it once was."

Echoing the sentiment by the europhile, Goldman"s Allison Nathan writes that while the Euro area’s most immediate political risks—i.e., populist or euroskeptic parties winning key elections this year— did not materialize, these movements have continued to gain traction.

• In the Dutch elections in March, the far-right Party for Freedom performed worse than polls had once predicted, but still increased its share of the vote relative to the 2012 elections. It remains the second-largest party in parliament.


• In France, concerns about the prospect of Marine Le Pen winning the presidency gave way to optimism over Emmanuel Macron’s reform agenda; nonetheless, Le Pen posted the best-ever showing for her party in a presidential race.


• In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s CDU-CSU retained the largest number of seats in the Bundestag, but the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) entered it for the first time with 13% of the vote.


• And elsewhere in Europe, populist parties on various parts of the political spectrum performed well enough to participate in government coalitions; indeed, an anti-establishment candidate in the Czech Republic recently became prime minister

Some other observations and lessons from recent European events in the twilight days of 2017:

• The transition from campaigning to governing has proved difficult. Europe’s increasingly fragmented political landscape has made coalition-building challenging. In the Netherlands, it took over 200 days to form a government with only a single-seat majority. Similarly, German coalition talks with the Green party and the Liberal (FDP) party collapsed in November. But, after having planned to move into the opposition, the SPD—Merkel’s former coalition partner—decided at its congress last week to open talks with the CDU-CSU. Talks were set to begin this week.


• Other sources of uncertainty remain unresolved. Spain continues to grapple with the standoff between Madrid and Catalonia; regional elections in Catalonia on December 21 will influence the trajectory of the situation. Meanwhile, the UK and EU-27 seem likely to agree to move past the first phase of the Brexit talks (covering separation issues). But in a setback for UK Prime Minister Theresa May, UK lawmakers recently voted for an amendment to the Brexit bill that will guarantee Parliament a vote on the final deal agreed with the EU.


• The decline in political risk bolstered European assets, though fundamentals likely played a decisive role. The market-friendly outcome of the French elections dovetailed with a pick-up in European growth, supporting European equity markets. US inflows into European equities rose significantly but have since stabilized with the acceleration in growth and the decline in the risk premium likely behind us. Receding political risks also contributed to a stronger euro, which is up 12.5% against the dollar this year. Given the currency move, the SXXP is up roughly 7.5% in local terms and 20.6% in USD terms year-to-date.

Next, here"s what Goldman expects and will look for in 2018 and beyond:

• A continuation of the populist pull. The socioeconomic and cultural factors driving public opinion are unlikely to dissipate. Indeed, they may come into greater focus if growth moderates on a sequential basis starting in mid-2018.


• Constraints to further fiscal integration. Opposition to fiscal transfers within the Euro area makes incremental revisions to existing EU programs more likely than transformational change. Key to watch will be Macron’s credibility as a champion of integration, which will hinge on his ability to push through reforms in the face of political and economic constraints.


• Risks around Italian elections set to take place in March. Polls show the largest populist party, the 5 Star Movement (M5S), leading with roughly 27% of the vote. However, the new electoral law and M5S’s unwillingness to join a coalition suggest a centrist coalition is most likely. Such a government, while pro-EU/euro, would likely struggle to implement reforms.


• An eventual resolution of political issues in Germany and Spain. We believe Germany’s major parties will work to avoid new elections, given limited public appetite for a new vote and the risk of AfD gaining more seats in parliament. In Spain, economic and policy uncertainty could persist, but in our view, it is not likely to have lasting or systemic implications. Eventually, we expect a compromise that grants Catalonia greater autonomy within Spain.


• A bumpy road to Brexit. Expect the UK and EU to eventually agree to a two-year “status quo” transition plan.

And finally, here is a map showing where the forces of populism are expected to remain strong - and grow - across the continent.

Paul Craig Roberts" Christmas Column 2017: The Greatest Gift Of All

Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,

Dear Donors, thank you for your support in 2017. Although you have kept me working yet another year, I find it encouraging that there are some Americans who can think independently and who want to know. As Margaret Mead said, it only takes a few determined people to change the world. Perhaps some of you will be those people.

 

My traditional Christmas column goes back to sometime in the 1990s when I was a newspaper columnist. It has been widely reprinted at home and abroad. Every year two or three readers write to educate me that religion is the source of wars and persecutions. These readers confuse religion with mankind’s abuse of institutions, religious or otherwise. The United States has democratic institutions and legal institutions to protect civil liberties. Nevertheless, we now have a police state. Shall I argue that democracy and civil liberty are the causes of police states?

Some readers also are confused about hypocrisy. There is a vast difference between proclaiming moral principles that one might fail to live up to and proclaiming immoral principles that are all too easy to keep.

 

Liberty is a human achievement. We have it, or had it, because those who believed in it fought to achieve it. As I explain in my Christmas column, people were able to fight for liberty because Christianity empowered the individual.

 

The other cornerstone of our culture is the Constitution. Indeed, the United States is the Constitution. Without the Constitution, the United States is a different country, and Americans a different people. This is why assaults on the Constitution by the regimes in Washington are assaults on America that are far worse than any assaults by terrorists. There is not much that we can do about these assaults, but we should not through ignorance enable the assaults or believe the government’s claim that safety requires the curtailment of civil liberty.

 

In a spirit of goodwill, I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a successful New Year.

 

Paul Craig Roberts

The Greatest Gift For All

Christmas is a time of traditions. If you have found time in the rush before Christmas to decorate a tree, you are sharing in a relatively new tradition. Although the Christmas tree has ancient roots, at the beginning of the 20th century only 1 in 5 American families put up a tree. It was 1920 before the Christmas tree became the hallmark of the season. Calvin Coolidge was the first President to light a national Christmas tree on the White House lawn.

Gifts are another shared custom. This tradition comes from the wise men or three kings who brought gifts to baby Jesus. When I was a kid, gifts were more modest than they are now, but even then people were complaining about the commercialization of Christmas. We have grown accustomed to the commercialization. Christmas sales are the backbone of many businesses. Gift giving causes us to remember others and to take time from our harried lives to give them thought.

The decorations and gifts of Christmas are one of our connections to a Christian culture that has held Western civilization together for 2,000 years.

In our culture the individual counts. This permits an individual person to put his or her foot down, to take a stand on principle, to become a reformer and to take on injustice.

This empowerment of the individual is unique to Western civilization. It has made the individual a citizen equal in rights to all other citizens, protected from tyrannical government by the rule of law and free speech. These achievements are the products of centuries of struggle, but they all flow from the teaching that God so values the individual’s soul that he sent his son to die so we might live. By so elevating the individual, Christianity gave him a voice.

Formerly only those with power had a voice. But in Western civilization people with integrity have a voice. So do people with a sense of justice, of honor, of duty, of fair play. Reformers can reform, investors can invest, and entrepreneurs can create commercial enterprises, new products and new occupations.

The result was a land of opportunity. The United States attracted immigrants who shared our values and reflected them in their own lives. Our culture was absorbed by a diverse people who became one.

In recent decades we have lost sight of the historic achievement that empowered the individual. The religious, legal and political roots of this great achievement are no longer reverently taught in high schools, colleges and universities or respected by our government. The voices that reach us through the millennia and connect us to our culture are being silenced by “Identity Politics,” “political correctness” and “the war on terror.” Prayer has been driven from schools and Christian religious symbols from public life. Constitutional protections have been diminished by hegemonic political ambitions. Indefinite detention, torture, and murder are now acknowledged practices of the United States government. The historic achievement of due process has been rolled back. Tyranny has re-emerged.

Diversity at home and hegemony abroad are consuming values and are dismantling the culture and the rule of law. There is plenty of room for cultural diversity in the world, but not within a single country. A Tower of Babel has no culture. A person cannot be a Christian one day, a pagan the next and a Muslim the day after. A hodgepodge of cultural and religious values provides no basis for law – except the raw power of the pre-Christian past.

All Americans have a huge stake in Christianity. Whether or not we are individually believers in Christ, we are beneficiaries of the moral doctrine that has curbed power and protected the weak.

Power is the horse ridden by evil. In the 20th century the horse was ridden hard, and the 21st century shows an increase in pace. Millions of people were exterminated in the 20th century by National Socialists in Germany and by Soviet and Chinese communists simply because they were members of a race or class that had been demonized by intellectuals and political authority. In the beginning years of the 21st century, hundreds of thousands of Muslims in seven countries have been murdered and millions displaced in order to extend Washington’s hegemony.

Power that is secularized and cut free of civilizing traditions is not limited by moral and religious scruples. V.I. Lenin made this clear when he defined the meaning of his dictatorship as “unlimited power, resting directly on force, not limited by anything.” Washington’s drive for hegemony over US citizens and the rest of the world is based entirely on the exercise of force and is resurrecting unaccountable power.

Christianity’s emphasis on the worth of the individual makes such power as Lenin claimed, and Washington now claims, unthinkable. Be we religious or be we not, our celebration of Christ’s birthday celebrates a religion that made us masters of our souls and of our political life on Earth. Such a religion as this is worth holding on to even by atheists.

As we enter into 2018, Western civilization, the product of thousands of years of striving, is in decline. Degeneracy is everywhere before our eyes. As the West sinks into tyranny, will Western peoples defend their liberty and their souls, or will they sink into the tyranny, which again has raised its ugly and all devouring head?

"Chrislam" - Europe Folds To The Islamization Of Christmas

Authored by Soeren Kern via The Gatestone Institute,

The re-theologizing of Christmas is based on the false premise that the Jesus of the Bible is the Jesus (Isa) of the Koran. This religious fusion, sometimes referred to as "Chrislam," is gaining ground in a West that has become biblically illiterate.

• A school in Lüneburg postponed a Christmas party after a Muslim student complained that the singing of Christmas carols during school was incompatible with Islam. Alexander Gauland, the leader of the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD), said the school"s action was "an unbearable, involuntary submission to Islam" and amounted to a "cowardly injustice" toward non-Muslim children.


• "The word "Christmas," a symbol of our faith and our culture, does not discriminate against anyone. Striking the emblems of Christmas does not guarantee anyone"s respect, does not produce a welcoming and inclusive school and society, but fosters intolerance towards our culture, our customs, our laws and our traditions. We firmly believe that our traditions must be respected." — Milan politician Samuele Piscina.

This year"s Christmas season has been marked by Islam-related controversies in nearly every European country. Most of the conflicts have been generated by Europe"s multicultural political and religious elites, who are bending over backwards to secularize Christmas, ostensibly to ensure that Muslims will not be offended by the Christian festival.

Many traditional Christmas markets have been renamed — Amsterdam Winter Parade, Brussels Winter Pleasures, Kreuzberger Wintermarkt, London Winterville, Munich Winter Festival — to project a multicultural veneer of secular tolerance.

More troubling are the growing efforts to Islamize Christmas. The re-theologizing of Christmas is based on the false premise that the Jesus of the Bible is the Jesus (Isa) of the Koran. This religious fusion, sometimes referred to as "Chrislam," is gaining ground in a West that has become biblically illiterate.

In Britain, for instance, the All Saints Church in Kingston upon Thames recently held a joint birthday celebration for Jesus and Mohammed. The "Milad, Advent and Christmas Celebration" on December 3 was aimed at "marking the birthday of Prophet Mohammed and looking forward to the birthday of Jesus." The hour-long service included time for Islamic prayer and was followed by the cutting of a birthday cake.

The prominent Christian blog "Archbishop Cranmer" rebuked the church for its lack of discernment:

"Note how this event is "Marking the birthday of Prophet Mohammed," but not looking forward to the birthday of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Mohammed gets his prophethood, while Jesus gets neither his prophethood nor his priesthood; neither his kingship nor his messiahship. It"s the exalted Prophet Mohammed along with plain old Jesus, because to have added any of his claims to divinity would, of course, have alienated many Muslims (if they hadn"t already been alienated by the haram [forbidden by Islam] celebration), which wouldn"t have been very interfaith or sensitively missional, would it?"

The blog added that exalting Mohammed in churches effectively proclaims that Mohammed is greater than Jesus:

"Every time a church accords Mohammed the epithet "Prophet," they are rejecting the crucifixion, denying the resurrection of Christ, and refuting that the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, for Mohammed denied all of these foundational tenets of the Christian faith."

Previously, a passage from the Koran denying that Jesus is the Son of God was read during a service at a Scottish Episcopal Church in Glasgow on Epiphany, a festival commemorating the incarnation of God in the person of Jesus Christ. One of the Queen"s chaplains, Gavin Ashenden, referred to the Koran reading as "blasphemy." He added that "there are other and considerably better ways to build "bridges of understanding"" with Muslims.

In London, the All-Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims, a parliamentary group composed of members of both the House of Commons and the House of Lords, issued a report, "A Very Merry Muslim Christmas," aimed at drawing attention to the "humanity" of Muslims during Christmas. The report states:

"Too often, Muslim charities come to our attention because of negative media coverage... What we hear even less about is the "Muslim Merry Christmas." The soup kitchens, the food banks, the Christmas dinners, the New Year clean-up — work Muslim charities will be busy doing during the Christmas period."

In Scotland, the regional government was accused of "undermining" Britain"s Christian heritage by promoting "winter festivals" for ethnic minorities while ignoring Christmas. Scotland"s International Development Minister, Alasdair Allan, pledged nearly £400,000 ($535,000) to fund 23 events during the winter months. He described them as "key dates in our national calendar" and said the "exciting and diverse" program would help Scots "celebrate everything great about our wonderful country during the winter months." None of the events, however, has any connection to Christmas. A spokesman for the Catholic Church in Scotland said:

"It is deeply disappointing that the Scottish Government has chosen not to recognize the religious reality of Christmas in its Winter Festival events. Over half of the population stated their religion as Christian in the last census. Catholics, and other Christians, may quite rightly wonder why this publicly-funded Festival does not include any events designed to help Scots celebrate the birth of Christ which is undoubtedly the most significant celebration in the winter months."

Gordon Macdonald, of Christian charity CARE, added:

"It is part of the general secularization that has been taking place within the Scottish Government for a number of years where our Christian heritage and value system has been undermined as a direct result of government policy."

In Denmark, a primary school in Graested cancelled a traditional church service marking the beginning of Christmas in order not to offend Muslim pupils. Some parents accused the school of having double-standards: it recently held an event called "Syria Week" in which children immersed themselves in Middle Eastern culture. Ignoring parents, the school board sided with the school:

"The board backs the school"s decision to create new traditions [emphasis added] that involve children and young people."

Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen, who attended the school as a child, said the decision should be reversed. Health Minister Ellen Trane Norby added:

"Danish primary schools have a duty to spread education — and teaching the cultural values and knowledge connected to Christmas is an essential part of that."

In France, the annual Christmas market in the Croix-Rousse district of Lyon was cancelled because of exorbitant security costs associated with protecting the event from Islamic terror. The city"s annual festival of lights did go ahead this year. The military governor of Lyon, General Pierre Chavancy, said that, because of the "sensitivity" of the event, 1,500 soldiers and police, backed up by dogs, river brigades and mine-clearers, would be deployed to provide security.

In neighboring Belgium, the head of the Red Cross in Liège, André Rouffart, ordered all 28 offices in the city to remove crucifixes to affirm the organization"s secular identity. Critics said the decision was part of a broader effort to "modify certain terminologies" and to "break with our traditions and our roots" in order to appease Muslims. "We once said Christmas holidays, now we say winter holidays," said a local Red Cross volunteer. "The Christmas market in Brussels has been renamed "Winter Pleasures." Let things remain as they are."

In Germany, a school in Lüneburg postponed a Christmas party after a Muslim student complained that the singing of Christmas carols during school was incompatible with Islam. The school"s decision to reschedule the event as a non-compulsory after-school activity generated "a flood of hate mail and even threats against school management and school board," according to Focus. In an effort to appease angry parents, Headmaster Friedrich Suhr said that "non-Christian" Christmas songs such as "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" would not be banned. Alexander Gauland, the leader of the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD), said the school"s action was "an unbearable, involuntary submission to Islam" and amounted to a "cowardly injustice" toward non-Muslim children.

In Munich, ads for a multicultural "winter market" depicted a snowman covered in a burqa. The chairman of the AfD in Bavaria, Petr Bystron, noted the irony: "A burqa snowman as a tolerance symbol?" In Halle, the Christmas market was renamed "Wintermarket."

In Berlin, the traditional Christmas market was protected by walls of concrete barriers to prevent a repeat of last year"s jihadist attack in which 12 people were killed and more than 50 injured. In Stuttgart, a 53-year-old man was arrested at the Christmas market after he claimed to carrying a bomb in his backpack. In Potsdam, the Christmas market was closed after a nearby pharmacy received a letter bomb. In Bonn, the Christmas market was evacuated due to a bomb threat.

In Italy, a school in Milan removed references to Christmas at a party and renamed the holiday as "The Great Festival of Happy Holidays." Writing on Facebook, local politician Samuele Piscina accused the school of implementing "a politically correct leftist policy" that deprives Italian children the joy of Christmas:

"After the nativity scenes and the crucifixes, now even Christmas parties are hindered in schools. The word "Christmas," a symbol of our faith and our culture, does not discriminate against anyone. Striking the emblems of Christmas does not guarantee anyone"s respect, does not produce a welcoming and inclusive school and society, but fosters intolerance towards our culture, our customs, our laws and our traditions. We firmly believe that our traditions must be respected."

In Bolzano, a cardboard Christmas tree was ordered to be removed from the town hall because "it could have offended the sensibilities" of Muslims. A local politician, Alessandro Urzì, expressed outrage at the decision: "The bureaucratic rigor with which the tree was removed to avoid the risk of annoying someone reflects the barbarization of the cultural climate."

In Norway, a primary school in Skien announced that its Christmas festivities this year would include not only the usual reading by pupils of verses from the Bible but also two verses from the Koran which refer to Jesus. The inimitable Bruce Bawer explained the implications:

"Stigeråsen School"s Christmas plans provide yet another example of dhimmitude: craven European submission to Islam. This year, there might be a couple of Koran verses in a Christmas show; next year, a yuletide event at which both religions are celebrated on an even footing; and not too many years after that, perhaps, a children"s celebration at which there is no cross and no Christmas tree, only prayer rugs, benedictions in Arabic, and hijabs for the girls."

In Spain, the Madrid City Council replaced Christmas festivities in the capital with a neo-Pagan "International Fair of the Cultures." According to Madrid Mayor Manuela Carmena, a former member of Spain"s Communist Party, the express purpose of the month-long event is to de-Christianize Christmas to make it more inclusive:

"We all know that Christmas is a festival of religious origin, but it is also a celebration of humanity, solidarity. Therefore, the Madrid City Council wants to do everything possible so that everyone who is in this city, from wherever they may be, can enjoy Christmas."

Breaking with tradition, the Madrid city hall also refused to place a nativity scene at the Puerta de Alcalá, one of the city"s most iconic monuments. Local politician José Luis Martínez-Almeida accused Carmena of "enthusiastically collaborating in the celebration of Ramadan" but "trying to hide all the Christian symbols of Christmas." He added: "We want to reclaim our cultural and religious roots."

 

EU Militarizes Africa To Halt Migration

Authored by Finian Cunningham via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

Fighting terrorism is now morphing into clamping down on human migration, as far as the European Union is concerned.

France’s President Emmanuel Macron is leading the charge, claiming at a conference in Paris last week that terrorism and human trafficking are part of the same problem, requiring the deployment of a military force spread across Africa.

The melding of the two concepts provokes serious legal and moral questions.

But so desperate, it seems, is the EU to halt illegal migration into the bloc that it is moving to militarize the problem in Africa – under the guise of “fighting terrorism”.

This is tantamount to European Neo-imperialism. That is, attempting to sort out deep-seated socio-economic problems down the barrel of a gun. Not only that, but using futile heavy-handed methods to deal with problems that European powers themselves are responsible for creating.

Such an approach will only worsen humanitarian problems for millions of displaced war-torn and impoverished people. In typical arrogant imperialist fashion, the EU is not addressing root causes of the problem – its own role in shattering African societies from illegal wars and predatory economics.

The panicky reaction this week in Brussels to the formation of the new Austrian government led by populist Chancellor Sebastian Kurz shows that the other European powers are still rattled by the rise of nationalistic politics across Europe and the underlying long-term problem of migration into the EU.

Kurz’s People’s Party has formed a coalition government with the Freedom Party. Both share anti-immigration policies and are deeply critical of the EU. The new Austrian administration has been described with trepidation in the news media as the first “far-right” government in the European Union. That epithet appears to be aimed at demonizing the new Austrian authorities with the taint of “fascism”.

However, what seems to be the real concern among the pro-EU governments of Germany and France is that Austria rekindles wider fears in regard to large uncontrolled flows of refugees entering into Europe and the knock-on effect of rising anti-EU populist politics that those fears tend to fan.

Another sign of the EU’s concern over the flow of migrants into the bloc is the attempt by France, Germany and Italy to morph the issue of refugees into one of “fighting terrorism”. This is an audacious, not to say reprehensible, step of treating a humanitarian crisis with military force. But because the emotive “anti-terror” card is invoked, the intention is to mask the controversial, unethical move with a veneer of humanitarianism.

Last week, French President Emmanuel Macron hosted a summit in Paris which was billed as countering terrorism in the Sahel – the vast Northwest desert region of Africa. Macron has taken the lead earlier this year in forming what is known as the Group of Five (G5) countries straddling the Sahel region, comprising Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mauritania.

The leaders of the G5 were hosted by Macron at a chateau near Paris on December 13. Also in attendance were German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Italy’s premier Paolo Gentiloni. Significant too was the attendance at the summit by the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

In a brazen appeal for financial funding, Macron asked the Saudis and Emiratis to stump up money for the G5 military force. Both the oil-rich states responded with pledges of $100 million and $30 million, respectively. Other donors to the G5 “anti-terror operations” were the EU and the United States, each pledging $60 million. In other words, the Saudis and Emiratis are bankrolling the G5 “anti-terror” military coalition to the tune of nearly half its total budget.

The G5 comprises some 4,000 troops from the five mentioned African countries – all of them former French colonies. The French forces in the region are believed to number around the same. There are also American special forces operating, as was shown by the dramatic deadly shootout in Niger in October when four US troops were killed in an ambush.

What Macron is claiming to do is to replace the French forces with local troops from the G5. That move will save Paris millions of euro it is currently shelling out on the presence of its military in the Sahel. Knowing that these poor African countries would never be able to finance the operations, the French president is deftly involving the Saudis and Emiratis in the funding.

Macron’s proposal beggars belief. Given the record of the Gulf Arab hardline Sunni regimes in sponsoring terrorism across the Middle East, it is absurd to propose that these same regimes could support “anti-terror” operations in the Sahel.

The contradiction raises the real issue and purpose. France, Germany and Italy, on behalf of the EU, are actually using the moral and political cover of “fighting terrorism” in Africa to further their agenda of stemming the flow of migrants from the continent to Europe. And getting the Gulf Arabs to pay for it. The latter get PR value in return.

It is reckoned that the total African population will double in the next three decades to some 2.5 billion people. That presents European leaders with a formidable headache of worsening migration flows. Already in the last two years, there is estimated to have been 1.5 million refugees entering the EU, many of them from Africa. That phenomenon has, in turn, fueled anti-immigrant political parties across Europe who blame the EU political establishment for the problem. The populist backlash poses a threat to the cohesiveness of the EU. It was one of the issues that drove the British electorate to vote last year for leaving the bloc.

Rather than sniffing at “populist” politics in Austria, Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Denmark, France, Italy, Netherlands and Germany – and denigrating it as “fascist” – European leaders need to question their own responsibility. It is understandable that European communities can feel unnerved by the sudden influx of foreigners into their country. Given the relentless socio-economic austerity imposed on communities by Neo-Liberal capitalist governments, the anxieties over scarce public resources are accentuated, and understandable.

Moreover, the European members of the US-led NATO military alliance bear direct responsibility for opening the migration floodgates when they destroyed the state of Libya in an illegal war for regime change in 2011. France, Italy, Britain and Germany, among others, were complicit in that criminal war.

France too went on an illegal military expedition in Mali in 2013 to “defeat terrorism” – and its forces remain in that country today.

The real reason for that French intervention may likely have been securing uranium ore mines in Mali and Niger.

All those illegal military interventions by the Europeans in Northwest Africa unleashed militants, migration and human trafficking on a massive scale.

A report last week by Amnesty International also openly condemned European governments for colluding with human traffickers in Libya by forcibly sending would-be migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean back into the clutches of the traffickers on land.

Europe is so desperate to stem the flow of migrants because it is destabilizing the internal politics of the EU. So desperate is Europe that it is willing to force refugees back into the human trafficking networks to a fate of slavery in order to impede the flow into Europe.

Macron’s military “solution” for the Sahel is part of the same futile problem-solving. The French president, with the support of Germany, Italy and the rest of the EU, is using military force to combat “terrorism and human trafficking” which he equates as the same.

Furthermore, Macron and the EU are trying to do it on the cheap, by getting the Saudis and Emiratis to pay a large part of the budget.

This militarist policy is nothing short of a Neo-imperialist agenda in Europe, which can only make matters much, much worse.

European powers, as with the Americans, must stop interfering militarily in the affairs of Africa.

What is needed is a radical new economic and political model of massive public investment in Africa and Europe. The money is there, from the trillions of dollars that European corporations have stashed away in global tax havens. In short, what is required is a repudiation of neoliberal capitalism and the militarism that goes with it.

But there can be no solution under the current political leadership in Europe, as epitomized by French President Emmanuel Macron. Under the cynical guise of being a “liberal progressive”, he is offering the same old destructive policies that end up digging ever deeper holes for societies and the wider world.

So much for his recent corny slogan copying Trump, “Make the Planet Great Again”.

The false solution of dealing with European migration as a military problem of “terrorism” and “human traffickers” only lets the real perpetrators of the problems off the hook. France and the other European NATO powers have created their own problems from illegal wars and predatory economic policies. Now they want to “solve” those problems by adding more of the same problems. Make the Planet Groan Again.

Putin Warns "Russia Has Right To Respond" To US Military Buildup, Hints At Use Of Nuclear Weapons

Multiple Russian state media outlets are reporting that President Vladimir Putin has stressed that Russia has a right to respond to US military build-up in Europe while furthering its strategic nuclear deterrence capabilities in a speech delivered before a Defense Ministry meeting on Friday in the city of Balashikha outside of Moscow.

At the same meeting Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said that NATO has doubled the number of its military drills since 2012 in the vicinity of Russia"s borders, noting that Russia is carefully monitoring what it considers hostile NATO build-up and intensified surveillance operations along Russian borders. The defense minister further indicated that the number of NATO-member country troops stationed near Russian borders has tripled, growing from 10 to 40 thousand in three years, saying "In the Baltic states and Poland, four battalion-tactical groups, an armored brigade of the US Army, headquarters of NATO multinational divisions in Poland and Romania are deployed."

Russian solider during the September "Zapad" (West) war games. Image source: Getty

Since the crisis in Ukraine (which began in 2014) and Russia"s subsequent annexation of the Crimea, an Obama administration policy of steady build-up and periodic war games has been in place in East European and the Baltic countries, including Bulgaria, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Romania. A little under a year ago a Reuters report acknowledged that NATO has been "expanding its presence in the region to levels unprecedented since the Cold War" - something which the Pentagon has long touted as defensive in nature.

And just this week news broke that after months of indecision over whether or not to move forward with Obama-era legislation which initially paved the way for legalizing US arms sales to Ukraine, Trump has approved the first ever US commercial sale of weapons to the Kiev government, which Moscow sees as an illegitimate puppet regime supported by the West. According to The Washington Post, "administration officials confirmed that the State Department this month approved a commercial license authorizing the export of Model M107A1 Sniper Systems, ammunition, and associated parts and accessories to Ukraine, a sale valued at $41.5 million. These weapons address a specific vulnerability of Ukrainian forces fighting a Russian-backed separatist movement in two eastern provinces."

Meanwhile, it is likely that Putin"s words are to some extent a calculated response to news of the unexpected approval of US arms exports to Ukraine, which was reported on Wednesday. Putin characterized Washington"s new national security strategy as "aggressive" and "definitely offensive" according to Russia"s TASS news agency.

Putin said that both the US and NATO have been "accelerating build-up of infrastructure in Europe" in violation of the 1987 treaty on the elimination of intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles. He said concerning the new and expanding US missile defense system now based in Poland that they are not merely defensive in nature but offensive weapons: "The point is, and specialists know about it very well, those launchers are all-purpose. They can also be used with existing sea-launched cruise missiles with the flight range of up to 2,500 km [1,550 miles]. And in this case, these missiles are no longer sea-launched missiles, they can be easily moved to land," Putin said.

He added further that Russia"s Defense Ministry "should take into account" Western military strategies and that "Russia has a sovereign right and all possibilities to adequately and in due time react to such potential threats."

And notably concerning Putin"s reference to nuclear weapons and infrastructure, TASS summarizes the following:

There are efforts to disrupt strategic parity through deployment of global anti-missile defense system and other strike systems "equatable to nuclear weapons," the Russian leader told military officials. At the moment, Russia"s strategic nuclear forces are a reliable deterrent to such a military build-up, he added. However, it is necessary to develop them further, Putin said. "I"m talking about missile systems fit to steadily counter not only existing, but also future ABMs."

This comes as earlier this week another spine-chilling scare story involving the Russians and Putin"s plan for supposed global domination spread widely in Western media after two major European tabloids published sensational headlines on Wednesday claiming that, according to the UK"s largest tabloid The Sun, Russia secretly practiced full-scale invasion of Europe with bombing raids on Germany during Russia"s September "Zapad" (West) military drills. 

Graphic purporting to show Russia"s September pre-planned "Zapad" military drills. The UK Sun tabloid published it along with the following scaremongering and false headline: "Russia secretly practised full-scale invasion of Europe with bombing raids on Germany during Vladimir Putin’s military drills."

However, analysis of the Russian military games produced by Chatham House (essentially the UK version of The Council on Foreign Relations, or CFR) admitted that the exercise was "small, managed, and contained" while being defensive in nature as "a dress rehearsal for defending against a NATO intervention" and meant to send a message to the West, saying "This is what Russia wants the West to believe is the Kremlin’s understanding of what a conventional war between Russia and NATO forces would look like."

The Chatham House analysis further commented that the West"s previous "scaremongering" over the periodic military games (and lately revived this week in the media) is actually affirming the Russian perspective - that NATO-driven threat inflation and scare tactics are really what"s driving current tensions and build-up between the two sides.

According to Chatham House:

Western commentators were obsessed with the numbers of Russian troops being mobilized during the course of exercise and stuck firmly to the "100,000 servicemen" narrative. But Russia proved them wrong by keeping the drills small, managed, and contained.

 

The Kremlin could therefore credibly claim that the West overreacted and fell victim to scaremongering and reporting rumors that Moscow was not being transparent about the nature of the exercise and its intentions.

Considering that Chatham House is at the heart of the UK"s political and defense establishment, this is a remarkably candid admission from a source that"s usually hawkish on the perceived Russian threat of anti-NATO military expansion. 

But perhaps as US and NATO military bases have increasingly encroached on Russia"s borders over the last two decades, it is finally becoming obvious and undeniable even to the most establishment of Western pundits that Putin has a reason to build up Russian defenses in equal measure.

Nigeria, Venezuela, & USA - "We"re Worse Off Today Than 50 Years Ago"

Fifty years ago, the world was a very different place.

PCs and smartphones were the stuff of Sci-Fi and numerous nations found themselves at crucial crossroads in their evolution.

While Russia and US could arguably be back in another Cold War, Pew Research asked 43,000 around the world whether life is better (or worse) now than 50 years ago.

The results may surprise you...

At a country level, some of the most positive assessments of progress over the past 50 years are found in Vietnam (88% say life is better today), India (69%) and South Korea (68%) – all societies that have seen dramatic economic transformations since the late 1960s, not to mention the end of armed conflict in the case of Vietnam. A majority in Turkey (65% better) also share a sense of progress over the past five decades. In some of the more developed countries, publics also report that life is better today, including 65% in Japan and Germany, and 64% in the Netherlands and Sweden.

But not everyone is convinced that life today is an improvement over the past.

Americans are split on this issue: 41% say life is worse while 37% say better. Though the divide is, as with everything else today, extremely partisan...

Meanwhile, half or more in countries ranging from Italy (50%) and Greece (53%) to Nigeria (54%) and Kenya (53%) to Venezuela (72%) and Mexico (68%) say life is worse today.

There are wide variations in the assessment of the last 50 years across the globe...

Latin Americans stand out for their widespread negative assessment of progress over the past half-century. Venezuelans and Mexicans (72% and 68% life is worse) are the most downbeat, but nowhere in the region do more than half say life has improved for people like themselves.

Across the Middle East and North Africa, views of life today compared with 50 years ago vary substantially by country. Turkey reports the most progress in the region, with 65% saying life is better, followed by Israel, where 52% say the same about their country. Tunisians, Jordanians and Lebanese tend to say life has gotten worse for people like them, with Tunisians expressing the most widespread negativity (60%).

In sub-Saharan Africa, comparative assessments of present and past are more evenly divided. A median of 46% say life today is worse than five decades ago, compared with 42% who think life is better. Positive ratings of progress range from 47% “better” in South Africa to 36% in Ghana.

Nigeria and Kenya are the only countries surveyed in the region where more than half say life is worse (54% and 53%, respectively).

Europeans tend to see the past half-century as a period of progress. A regional median of 53% describes life as better today, compared with 30% who take the opposite view. Upbeat assessments are most common in Germany (65% better), the Netherlands (64%), Sweden (64%), Poland (62%) and Spain (60%). Greeks (53% worse) and Italians (50%) are the least convinced that life is better than 50 years ago.

The Asia-Pacific region is home to some of the most favorable assessments of progress. Vietnam (88% better) stands out, but views of life today vs. the past are also quite rosy in India (69%), South Korea (68%) and Japan (65%). Filipinos are the least sanguine about progress, with fewer than half (43%) saying life is better.

In North America, Canadians widely report progress over the past five decades (55%) while fewer Americans (37%) say the same about life in their country.

In the U.S., Republicans are more likely to say life is better today, compared with Democrats – an attitudinal shift in the wake of Donald Trump’s election as president in November 2016.

Steinhoff Disintegrates As Biggest Shareholder Caught In Margin Call "Death Spiral"

The stock of scandal-plagued retailer Steinhoff plunged for the third consecutive day, bringing its total drop in the past 3 days to over 50%, as its biggest shareholder and former Chairman, Christo Wiese, was caught in a vicious margin call, and increased the amount he has raised from selling shares in various related entities such as food retailer Shoprite Holdings Ltd. to 3.3 billion rand ($259 million) as his net worth continues to disintegrate amid the accounting scandal which some - this website included - have likened to a modern-day Enron.

Christo Wiese: largest Steinhoff shareholder and 4th richest South African

Wiese’s liquidation of assets comes as Steinhoff’s stock extended its drop this month to 93%, fueled by the resignation of CEO Officer Markus Jooste after auditors refused to sign-off on the furniture and clothing company’s 2017 earnings.

Things deteriorated two days ago when the company - whose bonds were recently purchased by the ECB - announced its lenders were pulling credit lines, and added that it isn’t yet able to assess the magnitude of financial irregularities disclosed two weeks ago. Steinhoff also said it didn’t know when it would be able to publish audited results for 2017 and 2016, nor whether additional years will need to be restated, prompting the liquidity exodus.

Meanwhile, the liquidations continues as both the company and its shareholders scramble to obtain liquidity to cover securities thay have margined with company assets. Steinhoff, which is run from South Africa but has its main stock listing in Germany, faces a potential fire sale of its global retail holdings as it battles for survival according to Bloomberg. Wiese, the chairman of Shoprite, sold 1.1 billion rand of the grocer’s shares on Tuesday, according to a statement, following the sale of stock worth 2.2 billion rand in the last week.

Weise is caught in a classical - and accelerating - margin call death spiral, where he has to liquidate increasingly more assets to meet liabilities following the more than 90% decline in the value of his holdings in Steinhoff. In other words, the more he sells, the more he has to sell, and as the chart below shows, he is doing just that.

Meanwhile, a unit of Barclays Africa separately applied for liquidation of a company called Mayfair Speculators Pty Ltd., which owns racehorses, property and Steinhoff shares and is linked to former CEO Jooste, Bloomberg reports. Mayfair is being probed by the bank for moving 1.5 billion rand of assets to its holding company in August ahead of information about Steinhoff’s accounting irregularities being released, according to the documents.

And while both the company and its largest shareholders are caught in a "death spiral" which ends with the stock hitting zero, there is still no news whether the ECB has finally sold its Steinhoff bonds which have a distinct chance of ending up totally worthless.

German Antifa Group Posts Revenge "Hit List" Of 54 Police Officers

A "left-wing extremist" group in Germany associated with Antifa published a list of 54 police officers believed to have taken part in raids of suspected rioters protesting the G20 summit in Hamburg, with  the group calling for the public to "dox" the officers by sending in their personal information.

"We would be pleased about tips regarding where they live or can be met privately," reads the post

The list was posted Sunday evening on an extremist website, reports Die Welt, and is thought to be revenge for the publication by Hamburg investigators of over 100 photos and videos G20 riot participants in the hopes that the public will assist in their investigation.

German Police prepare for G20 riots Hamburg

The German Police Union (GdP) has called the list of officers "abominable, defamatory and the result of a fundamental attitude that glorifies and exerts violence," noting the danger of "left-wing extremist terrorists" who "stir up hatred," adding that "this must be stopped and done quickly."

?????????????? #MerkelLand: Here, the left-extreme black bloc riots in the #Elbchaussee at #Merkel"s 400-million-euro #G20 show in #Hamburg. pic.twitter.com/6vyWcnSjx3

— Onlinemagazin (@OnlineMagazin) July 7, 2017

Violence broke out after 20,000 people took to the streets to protest the July G20 meeting held in Hamburg, Germany - 1,000 or so of which were described as "hard-left militants." Reuters reported at the time: 

"for the 1,000 hard-left militants who wreaked havoc on the streets of Hamburg, German Chancellor Angela Merkel could not have chosen a better location to hold the G20 summit." That"s because the dense, urban environment allows them to disperse and hide easily, and the city is full symbols of the wealth they detest - from the gleaming 800 million euro ($913 million) Elbphilharmonie concert hall to the shipyards that build luxury yachts.

As the July 7-8 summit started, Black Bloc anarchists and other anti-capitalist protesters sat in groups on main intersections, blocking streets and bridges leading to the summit venue as well as a road used by trucks at Hamburg Port. On Thursday night, they hurled beer bottles, blocked roads using trash bins and set cars on fire.

A total of 186 people were detained and 225 were arrested, while around 500 police officers were reportedly injured. Arrest warrants were issued for 51 individuals following the riots. 

Ich hab schon viel in Hamburg gesehen - aber sowas noch nicht. #g20 #G20HAM17 #Blockg20 pic.twitter.com/BdRN6TddcB

— Stefan S. (@StefanSkibbe) July 7, 2017

live police r3move protesters against g20 Hamburg https://t.co/Ym0XFep691

— Lizzie Phelan (@LizziePhelan) July 7, 2017

Aftermath of #G20 protests #G20Hamburg pic.twitter.com/BLYMyt4urU

— Emma Anderson (@emkanderson) July 7, 2017

Hamburg authorities faced accusations of abuse of power during the summit, as German media reported the use of a banned combat weapon, to fire on attackers. The MZP 1multipurpose pistol was used to shoot rubber bullets on 15 occasions, while tear gas was deployed 67 times between July 6 and July 8.

H&K MZP 1 pictured on a German police officer during G20 riots (Twitter)

Hamburg police insist that the MZP 1 is a permitted weapon, however a Finance Ministry document seen by Spiegel reveals that it is in fact a banned combat weapon. The manufacturer of the weapon, Heckler & Koch, classifies the MZP 1 as a grenade launcher.