US Submarine That Attacked Syria ‘NOT WELCOME’ Back To Italy After ‘Failed’ Strike

The United States nuclear submarine that took part in the attack on Syria over the alleged chemical weapons use is not allowed back in the waters near Naples, Italy, the mayor declared.  The mayor states that he designated the city a “denuclearized zone” in 2015 and wants to keep it that way.

Naples Mayor Luigi de Magistris wrote last week to Rear Admiral Arturo Faraone, head of the city’s port authority, complaining that the official had given permission to allow Virginia-class submarine USS John Warner to pass through the Gulf of Naples on March 20, following a two-week exercise by Western military alliance NATO. Magistris argued that he had designated the city a “denuclearized zone” in a 2015 act that sought to “prohibit docking and parking of any vessel that is nuclear-powered or contains nuclear weapons” and declared Naples a “city of peace,” according to Italian newspaper La Repubblica.

“Our administration is not against anyone but it is in favor of policies of peace, disarmament and international cooperation,” de Magistris told Italian news service Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata on Monday. “It is in favor of diplomacy so that international institutions like the U.S. are the lead players in moments of crisis.  The fact that it is the same submarine (involved in the Syria attack) further reinforces the rightness of the order with which we said ships of nuclear propulsion or carrying nuclear weapons are not welcome in the port of Naples and, therefore, they are not allowed to travel through or stay,” he added.

Adding further insult to injury, Israel has come out saying the US-led strike on Syria, which was coordinated with the help of France and the United Kingdom, was a failure. Based on their goals outlined, which was to prevent Bashar al-Assad from using chemical weapons in the future, the US-led strike on the war-torn nation won’t accomplish that. Israeli intelligence said that the US strike was, for all intents and purposes, a waste of money because it didn’t take out anything, really.

“If President Trump had ordered the strike only to show that the US responded to [Syrian President Bashar] Assad’s use of chemical weapons, then that goal has been achieved,” Israel’s Ynetnews quoted a senior defense official as saying. “But if there was another objective — such as paralyzing the ability to launch chemical weapons or deterring Assad from using it again — it’s doubtful any of these objectives have been met.”

Bilderberg 2018 leaked: Location and agenda

(INTELLIHUB) — American Free Press reporter Mark Anderson says Bilderberg 2018 will likely be taking place June 7-10 in Turin, Italy, based on a leak from Prime Minister of Serbia Ana Brnabić’s office staff who posted the information online after she was invited to the yearly business klatch back in January.

Anderson has covered the Bilderberg Group for decades, before the group was brought out of the shadows in 2012, when Intellihub founder Shepard Ambellas, along with Alex Jones, Dan Dicks, and others forced the ultra-secret cabal out into the open with after garnering extensive mainstream coverage on location from Chantilly, Virginia, as seen in the documentary film Shade the Motion Picture (produced by Shepard Ambellas and Jason Bermas).

Anderson confirms the original leak came from the Serbian government.

“I don’t think that they would have any reason to misrepresent where [the meeting] is going to take place,” the reporter explained. “I think they just matter of factually published it — maybe because they were proud she was invited after having contributed to some basic programs at the World Economic Forum.”

Watch the entire interview to get all of the juicy details on the Bilderberger’s 2018 agenda.

Featured Image: Prime Minister of Serbia Ana Brnabić (Влада на Република Македонија/Flickr)

©2018. INTELLIHUB.COM. All Rights Reserved.

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Famed Psychic Nostradamus’ 2018 Predictions Are DIRE

Notable psychic Nostradamus put together a series of predictions, which some scholars say point to this year, 2018.  In these predictions, are dire situations such as war, death, and economic hardships.  But there is also a silver lining…

Nostradamus has predicted terrible things for 2018, however, the good thing could be that life spans after all of this trauma could expand to up to 200 years.  But before that, the French prophet says we have to endure World War 3.

The most chilling prediction for 2018 is from Nostradamus’ book Les Propheties. It includes a quatrain that some have interpreted as describing the start of the third world war.  “The big war will start in France and all Europe will be attacked, it will be long and terrifying for everyone and then finally there will be peace but only a few will enjoy it,” said Nostradamus.  “A war will start between the two great world powers and it will last for a period of 27 years.” Some scholars have predicted China, Russia, and North Korea will unite to take on the United States.

As if a worldwide war, likely a nuclear war as well, isn’t bad enough, Nostradamus also predicted that Mount Vesuvius will erupt violently.  The Italian volcano will “shake the earth every five minutes,” and at least 6,000 people will be killed, according to the prophecy. In early 2016, more than 1.5 million people were warned they are were living in the danger zone of the supervolcano. At that time, it was also clarified that the volcano could go off anytime causing a global catastrophe. Half of the three million people living in Naples were told they live in a new yellow danger zone of the Vesuvius supervolcano, the infamous peak which was responsible for the historic destruction of Pompeii in 79AD.

Nostradamus also appears to have predicted the United States will suffer a major earthquake we’ve come to know as “the Big One.”  According to the prediction, “An earthquake shall concern particularly the western area of the United States. Its power shall be felt in lands throughout the globe.” Worryingly, the US Geological Survey (USGS) carefully monitors seismic activity in the Cascadia Subduction Zone, where there were a series of medium tremors in 2016, and two fault lines in California, including San Andreas. Scientists say both the California fault lines and the Cascadia Subduction Zone are long overdue a major earthquake of magnitude eight or above.

The Cascadia Subduction Zone appears to be of utmost concern. It runs about 60 miles offshore along the Pacific coast from northern California to Vancouver Island, so major cities including Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver are within its tsunami range, threatening millions of people’s lives and major infrastructure.

Some also say that Nostradamus predicted an economic collapse. According to his prophecies, “the rich would die many times over.” This is taken by many to mean the global economic collapse as a result of WW3 and the effects of many natural disasters will generate an apocalyptic cumulative effect of despair and disaster.

But the one bright point is that those who pull through all of these disasters could see their life expectancy skyrocket.  Nostradamus also predicted that humans could live up to 200 years after the apocalypse.

"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."

 

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.

The Best Tax Incentive In The World

Authored by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,

In a move almost destined to prove that laws and policies have absolutely zero meaning, the European Union released a list of “tax havens” last week… with a massive, giant, highly conspicuous omission.

The blacklist contains the names of the usual suspects– Panama, United Arab Emirates, etc., along with a few additions like Mongolia and Marshall Islands.

But, again, conspicuously missing from this list is far and away the biggest tax haven in the world– none other than the United States of America.

It’s hard for US taxpayers to imagine the Land of the Free being a tax haven.

Americans are taxed heavily on ALL of their income, no matter where in the world they live.

Americans are taxed when they earn, when they save, when they spend and when they die.

And yet, for non-Americans, the US is a treasure trove of tax-free anonymity.

Non-Americans can register completely anonymous corporations and LLCs in nearly every state in the US, with some of the stronger jurisdictions being Delaware, Nevada, Wyoming, New Mexico and South Dakota.

And their name need never appear, ever, on any of the documents.

They can establish bank accounts and brokerage accounts with those anonymous corporations. They can purchase real estate with those anonymous corporations.

Moreover, non-Americans can easily establish bank and brokerage accounts overseas, and use their anonymous US companies to engage in business all over the world.

And in many cases, non-Americans can generate unlimited capital gains on their stock and bond investments and pay absolutely zero tax to Uncle Sam.

It’s a hell of a deal, far better than what the countries on the EU blacklist offer.

The EU’s list is supposed to call out a handful of nations for refusing to comply with international tax reporting and information sharing agreements– most notably the worldwide “Common Reporting Standards” (CRS) that came into effect last year.

CRS is basically a worldwide information-sharing agreement about taxes, banking transactions, and business activity.

Dozens of countries have signed up for it.

What’s totally bizarre is that a number of jurisdictions on the EU’s blacklist are already reporting, or scheduled to begin reporting, in accordance with CRS.

Panama and Marshall Islands, for example, will begin reporting in 2018. South Korea, which also made the EU blacklist, has already started reporting.

The United States, on the other hand, is not signatory to CRS, and the US government has stated it has zero intention of joining CRS.

And yet South Korea is on the blacklist and the US is not.

These lists are completely meaningless… the whole exercise is a wasteful farce.

Even the premise is deeply flawed. These EU bureaucrats are so terrified that an individual somewhere in the world might actually be able to exercise some financial privacy.

But they can’t handle that. They turn apoplectic at the thought of not being able to know everything you’ve ever done with your money.

They’re also hell bent on taking as much of it for themselves as possible.

Rather than trying to attract talented entrepreneurs, investors, businesses, and workers with low taxes and friendly government regimes, they terrorize everyone with higher taxes and increasingly socialist policies.

It’s not working.

Nearly a decade after the financial crisis, Europe still has appallingly high youth unemployment rates (roughly 40% in Greece, Italy, Spain) and banking systems that teeter on failure.

But a clear track record of failure has never stopped self-aggrandizing politicians from trying the same thing and expecting different results.

The end game of this insanity is that the EU now blames other countries for the failures of its own idiotic policies.

It’s all quite pathetic.

The good news here is that very little will really change.

Some of the countries on the black list may modify their tax codes to appease EU bureaucrats.

But some of the best tax strategies in the world won’t change in the slightest.

Bear in mind, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with taking legal steps to reduce the amount of tax that you owe. On the contrary, it’s just good sense.

US judge and legal philosopher Billings Learned Hand summed it up best when he wrote,

“Any one may so arrange his affairs that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which will best pay the Treasury; there is not even a patriotic duty to increase one’s taxes.”

And regardless of the EU’s temper tantrum, there are still countless ways for businesses in the 21st century to slash their tax bills.

One of them is Puerto Rico’s Export Services Act, also known as Act 20.

I’ve written about this a number of times – it’s an incredibly attractive law that allows all sorts of businesses to domicile in Puerto Rico with a corporate tax rate of just 4%.

This applies to industries ranging from various online businesses to consulting services, financial services, marketing services, and much more.

And ANYONE can realize these benefits, regardless of whether or not you’re a US citizen.

As a US territory, Puerto Rico isn’t on anyone’s blacklist.

And even despite all the misfortune the island has endured over the past year, the government there is doubling down on the tax incentives… and recently expanded a number of programs to make them even more attractive.

Puerto Rico may prove to be a fantastic option for your existing or prospective business; I’ve even structured one of my businesses there, and we’re looking at setting up another one there too.

These tax incentives are real… and could legally save you tens of thousands… hundreds of thousands… even millions per year.

That level of savings can have an enormous impact on your life, and it’s worth considering.

If you’re interested in learning more about it, we’ve created a report that explains the tax incentives in greater detail and tells you how to get started reducing taxes in Puerto Rico.

EU Could Scrap "Divisive & Ineffective" Refugee Quota Scheme

The Guardian reports that EU could scrap a divisive scheme that compels member states to accept quotas of refugees, one of the bloc’s most senior leaders will say this week.

The president of the European council, Donald Tusk, will tell EU leaders at a summit on Thursday that mandatory quotas have been divisive and ineffective, in a clear sign that he is ready to abandon the policy that has created bitter splits across the continent.

Jennifer Rankin reports that Tusk will set a six-month deadline for EU leaders to reach unanimous agreement on reforms to the European asylum system, but will propose alternatives if there is no consensus. 

“If there is no solution... including on the issue of mandatory quotas, the president of the European council will present a way forward,” states a draft letter from Tusk to national capitals, seen by the Guardian.

In effect this means scrapping mandatory quotas, because Hungary, Poland and Czech Republic are fiercely opposed to the idea of dispersing refugees around the bloc based on a formula drawn up in Brussels. Tusk is likely to face opposition, however, from other EU bodies, including the European commission.

EU leaders introduced compulsory quotas in 2015 at the height of the migration crisis, as thousands of people arrived daily on Europe’s shores, many of whom were refugees from Syria, Iraq and Eritrea.

Hungary, Slovakia, Romania and the Czech Republic voted against the move, but the policy was forced through by a majority vote.

Hungary and Poland have defied the rest of the EU by not taking a single refugee under the scheme, which aimed to relocate about 120,000 refugees, mainly Syrians. The Czech republic has taken in only 12.

All three countries were referred to the European court of justice last week for failing to implement the policy, the usual procedure for flouting EU rules.

Despite the backlash against the emergency scheme, the European commission proposed making quotas a permanent feature of EU law in 2016. Under its proposal, countries that refuse to take part in a “corrective allocation mechanism” to take the pressure off member states bearing the brunt would have to pay a “solidarity contribution” of €250,000 (£220,000) per asylum seeker.

The idea has been stalled for months, as home affairs ministers who make the law have been unable to agree on it.

Tusk will call on EU governments to take charge, rather than leaving Brussels to set the pace in managing refugee policy.

“Only member states are able to tackle the migration crisis effectively,” Tusk’s letter says. “The EU’s role is to offer its full support in all possible ways to help member states handle the migration crisis. But the EU has neither the capacity nor legal possibilities to replace member states.”

Any move to drop the plan is likely to upset Italy and Greece, countries that have urged the rest of the EU to help them cope with large numbers of refugees and migrants in recent years. Germany and Sweden, backed by the European commission, are also likely to contest any plan deemed to reduce the help offered by other member states.

One EU diplomat said some member states were surprised by Tusk’s letter “because it doesn’t seem to be in sync” with work undertaken by home affairs ministers working on the file.

We suspect we know one other "European" that will not be pleased... George Soros.

Doug Noland: There Will Be No Way Out When This Market Bubble Bursts

Authored by Adam Taggart via PeakProsperity.com,

This week Doug Noland joins the podcast to discuss what he refers to as the "granddaddy of all bubbles".

Noland, a 30-year market analyst and specialist in credit cycles, currently works at McAlvany Wealth Management and is well known for his prior 16-year stint helping manage the Prudent Bear Fund.

He certainly shares our views that prices in nearly every financial asset class have become remarkably distorted due to central bank intervention, first with Greenspan"s actions to backstop the markets in the late-1980"s, and more recently (and more egregiously) with the combined central banking cartel"s massive and sustained liquidity injections in the years following the Great Financial Crisis.

All of which has blown the biggest inter-connected set of asset price bubbles the world has ever seen.

Noland foresees tremendous losses as inevitable, as the central banks lose control of the monstrosity they have created:

This is the granddaddy of all bubbles. We are at the end a long cycle where the bubble has reached the heart of money and credit.

 

There will be no way out. We"re not going to get enough private credit growth to reflate things when this bubble bursts. It"s going to have to come from central bank credit; it"s going to have to come from sovereign debt.

 

When this bubble bursts, it will shock people how far the central banks will have to expand their balance sheet just to accommodate the deleveraging in the system. And they won"t really be able to add new liquidity to the market; they"re just going to allow the transfer of leveraged positions from the leveraged players onto the central bank balance sheets.

 

When you get to that point, when the market sees that transfer occurring, I predict there"s going to be fear of long-term financial instruments. We"ll see rising yields. That"s when things will become problematic.

 

There will be losses. Of this global bubble, I think European debt is about the most conspicuous. Sure, European junk debt is nuts, too. It currently trades at 2%. Why? Because the ECB is buying large amounts of corporate debt. The ECB has kept rates either at 0% or negative. The perception is that the ECB will keep those markets liquid.

 

But look at Italy. It"s rapidly approaching 135% in terms of government debt to GDP. That debt will not get paid back. But yet, the market is willing hold that debt at 1.7%. This is debt that has traded at over a 7% yield back in 2012. But here it is today at 1.7%. I mean, Europe is just grossly mispricing its huge debt market. The excesses that have unfolded in European debt across the board are just staggering.

 

So when we get to that point when the central banks begin aggressively expanding their balance sheets (again) but the bond markets are not happy about it, then the central banks will finally have to decide if they want to continue to inflate or if they"re going to focus on trying to keep market yields down. This will be a very, very difficult situation for central bankers when it unfolds.

Click the play button below to listen to Chris" interview with Doug Noland (54m:31s).

Erdogan"s Insomnia And NATO"s H-Bombs In Turkey

Authored by Nauman Sadiq,

Recently, Pravda newspaper of Russia has reported that the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been suffering from serious sleep deprivation and that he was yawning and dozed off during a press conference with the Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko while on a state visit to Kiev, and the video of the incident has been going viral over social media.

Though this might appear as a minor diplomatic gaffe but bear in mind that insomnia is a serious psychiatric disorder, cognitive functions of sleep-deprived individuals are severely hampered, and such people are prone to committing rash and reckless acts.

Moreover, readers who have been keenly watching Erdogan’s behavior since the July 2016 coup plot must have noticed in his recent TV appearances that his facial expressions have become quite bland lately, he has been lacking in any warmth even when he is hugging and kissing children for public relations’ photo ops, and he has the look of a madman in his eyes.

In order to substantiate this subjective psychoanalytical evaluation of Erdogan’s attitude and body language with concrete evidence, I would draw the reader’s attention to quite a few rash and impulsive acts committed by the Erdogan administration during the last couple of years.

First, the Turkish air force shot down a Russian Sukhoi Su-24 fighter jet on the border between Syria and Turkey on 24 November 2015 that brought the Turkish and Russian armed forces on the brink of a full-scale confrontation in Syria.

 

Second, the Russian ambassador to Turkey, Andrei Karlov, was assassinated at an art exhibition in Ankara on the evening of 19 December 2016 by an off-duty Turkish police officer, Mevlut Mert Altintas, who was suspected of being a Muslim fundamentalist.

 

Third, the Turkish military mounted the seven-month-long Operation Euphrates Shield in northern Syria immediately after the attempted coup plot from August 2016 to March 2017 that brought the Turkish military and its Free Syria Army proxies head-to-head with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces and their US bakers.

 

And fourth, the Turkish military has recently once again invaded Idlib in northwestern Syria on the pretext of enforcing a de-escalation zone between the Syrian militants and the government, despite official protest from the latter that the Turkish armed forces are in violation of Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Regarding the July 2016 coup plot, instead of a serious attempt at overthrowing the government, the coup plot actually was a large-scale mutiny within the ranks of the Turkish armed forces. Although Erdogan has scapegoated the Gulenists to settle scores with his one-time ally, but according to credible reports, the coup was in fact attempted by the Kemalist liberals against the Islamist government of Turkey.

For the last several years of the Syrian civil war, the Kemalists had been looking with suspicion at Erdogan administration’s policy of deliberately training and arming Sunni militants against the Shi’a-dominated government of Bashar al-Assad in the training camps located on Turkey’s borders with Syria in collaboration with CIA’s MOM, which is a Turkish acronym for military operations center.

As long as the US was onboard on the policy of nurturing Sunni Arab jihadists in Syria, the hands of Kemalists were tied. But after the US declared a war against one faction of Sunni militants, the Islamic State, in August 2014 and the consequent divergence between Washington’s policy of supporting the Kurds in Syria and the Islamist government of Turkey’s continued support to Sunni militants, it led to discord and adoption of contradictory policies.

And then, the spate of bombings in Turkey claimed by the Islamic State and separatist Kurds during the last couple of years, all of these factors contributed to widespread disaffection among the rank and file of Turkish armed forces, which regard themselves as the custodians of secular traditions and guarantors of peace and stability in Turkey.

The fact that one-third of 220 brigadiers and ten major generals were detained after the coup plot shows the level of frustration shown by the top and mid-ranking officers of the Turkish armed forces against Erdogan’s megalomaniac and self-destructive policies.

More to the point, it bears mentioning that the United States has been conducting air strikes against targets in Syria from the Incirlik airbase in Turkey and around fifty American B-61 hydrogen bombs have also been deployed there.

The safety of those H-bombs became a matter of real concern during the attempted coup plot against the Erdogan administration when the commander of the Incirlik airbase, General Bekir Ercan Van, along with nine other officers were arrested for supporting the coup. The movement in and out of the base was denied, power supply was cut off and the security threat level was raised to the highest state of alert, according to a 17 July 2016 report by Eric Schlosser for the New Yorker.

Anti-nuclear activists around the world have been worried about North Korea’s nuclear crisis. And during Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, the Democrats made a convincing argument to the American electorate that would they trust a US president affiliated with the infamous Alt-Right movement with nuclear codes?

What’s worth noting in the aforementioned report, however, is the fact that some of NATO’s H-bombs deployed in Turkey are to be delivered by the Turkish air force if the contingency arises. And a Muslim Brotherhood’s fanatic who has been suffering from insomnia and is prone to committing reckless and impulsive acts has absolute control over those nukes.

Therefore, in order to preempt the likelihood of a nuclear Armageddon, Washington should either press upon its NATO ally to constitute a medical review board to evaluate Erdogan’s psychiatric condition whether he is eligible to serve as president or not, or the US should recall those nukes and deploy them in a safer country like Germany, Italy, Belgium or Netherlands which already hosts dozens of similar NATO’s nukes on its territory, according to a report by the Turkish parliament.

*  *  *

Nauman Sadiq is an Islamabad-based attorney, columnist and geopolitical analyst focused on the politics of Af-Pak and Middle East regions, neocolonialism and petro-imperialism.

Carpetbagger Paradise - by James McShirley

The term carpetbagger originally referred to post-Civil War Northerners who

moved to the South during reconstruction for either economic gain, political

gain, or both. They frequently arrived with hastily sewn suitcases made of

carpet remnants, hence the moniker “carpetbaggers.” Carpetbagging has

subsequently also become a popular description for non-native politicians who

for expediency and opportunity establish political roots in some newfound

territory. (Think: The Bush family in Texas or Hillary Clinton in New York.)

Carpetbagging has now evolved to describe virtually any unscrupulous, or

opportunistic outsider seeking financial gain. In the context of this last

definition there has never been a time when carpetbagging has experienced such a

renaissance as it has in modern finance. It’s the golden era of carpetbagging.

You could say, in fact,

we are living in a veritable carpetbagger’s paradise.

They Should have called it “Carpetbanking”

Of course, by definition

all

bankers are in the business of carpetbagging. The very nature of owning the

pieces of paper we exchange for real goods and services means there’s a constant

source of outside profiteering, at the expense of local people in useful

society. You can’t buy, sell, lease, or conduct a single transaction without a

carpetbanker somewhere getting his cut. Maybe though in the case of bankers we

need to update the term carpetbagger to “Guccibagger.” Unscrupulous outsiders

plying their trade elsewhere has been a Fed tradition since 1913.

We’re no longer in Bedford Falls, Mr. Bailey. Mr. Potter’s heirs are alive, and

prospering all over the planet.

National Pastime

Carpetbagging has indeed become so fashionable as to be a National pastime.

Fully aided and abetted by the (not) Federal (and not) Reserve, with full

cooperation from the Federal government it has morphed to new dimensions. Things

like ZIRP, stock market bubbles, housing bubbles, and everything bubblelicious

in between are all fully sanctioned events. By “sanctioned” I mean, heavily

subsidized; ultimately by YOU, dear taxpayer. Carpetbaggers thrive on OPM and

implicit guarantees of success. Why reinvent the con when you can merely pack up

your magic carpetbag and climb on the carpetbagging hypersonic loop? All aboard!

The (Dis)information Super Highway

The carpetbagging highway is in fact a 10-lane super interstate stretching all

the way from Silicon Valley to Washington DC. Buy Tesla? Of course, that Musk

chap is working on a hyper-speed of light gismo which will transport you to Mars

in the morning and still have you back by 8 PM to watch

American Idol.

With that in mind how can TSLA stock not hit $5,000? Amazon? It’s a foregone

conclusion that the Bezos machine will eventually sell

everything

to

everybody.

He’s not only going to sell everything to everybody, he’s going to be able to

read your mind and deliver it while you are still thinking of it! Gone are the

days of even having to bother with those pesky keystrokes. Yessirree, in the

land of Amazon there will be no exertion, no jobs, and no profits, yet somehow,

it’s all going to work out. Who cares about social chaos and starvation when you

can load the boat on AMZN

now

and get rich! Living in a carpetbagger’s paradise is like watching perpetual

Brady Bunch reruns. Everything works out, and it always ends with a happy song.

Vegas Hotel, or a Tree in Southern Greece?

Gold and silver owners know full well the carpetbagging nature of derivatives,

and how they are used to suppress and manipulate the underlying product. You in

fact don’t need to know a damn thing about mining, precious metals, or even

what

gold and silver are, to profit handsomely from them. Does gold come from the

ground, or does it grow on trees in southern Greece and Italy? Isn’t a golden

nugget some hotel in Vegas where Elvis hung out? Who cares, why bother, just

know that you will make money playing the cartel game. Short gold on 1% rallies,

NFP Fridays, option expirations, and other key no-no times and you will come out

like a Northern carpetbagger in 1868 Biloxi. The name of the game is take what

they give you, and it’s obvious TPTB are fully quiescent in facilitating paper

profits derived from suppressing precious metals, and in doing so ruin an entire

industry.

Hard Times (At least for Now)

These are no doubt hard times for precious metal investors. The discouragement

is understandable, the unfairness of it all hard to swallow. The Bitcoin, Tesla,

and FAANG carpetbaggers have been partying like it’s 1999, a most recent

investing mania era, in addition to the Prince song. Carpetbaggers rarely see

the violent upper cuts that hit them out of nowhere. Like a few Northerners who

got tossed out on their ear into a muddy street in the South it wouldn’t take

much to turn this carpetbagger’s paradise into a 1-way muddy street to hell.

Tesla, Amazon, and other Uber-bubbly delights can become the latest incarnation

of 1990’s dot.com stocks, which never made money and fell back their intrinsic

values: zero, or near-zero. Pack your (non-carpet) bags, we’re traveling back to

the world of real

money;

which is always gold and silver. It’s been a long journey from 2011. The return

trip should be far more pleasant, even if it isn’t on a Mars hyper-light-speed

gismo.

James McShirley
November 30, 2017

Mapping The Richest People In The World

A few weeks ago, HowMuch.net detailed the richest person on each continent. Today, we take this one step further to show you the richest person in each country, according to Forbes.

Source: HowMuch.net

First off, Bill Gates is not on our list. Why? Because Jeff Bezos is officially worth more than him. Amazon has made some recent high-profile business decisions, including the acquisition of Whole Foods and announcing a competition for the location of a second headquarters. Bezos’ fortune is specifically tied to the price of Amazon’s stock. He’s been in first place and fallen behind Mr. Gates before, but for now, he remains in the top spot. Carlos Slim Helu ($61.9B) and David Thomson ($26.9B) round out the continent, although we should mention the richest billionaire in the Caribbean too: Jacky Xu, who made his money in the apparel industry.

Turning to Europe gives us a more diverse group of billionaires from a wide range of industries.

Source: HowMuch.net

Amancio Ortega from Spain takes the top spot with a fortune of almost $75 billion, followed by Bernard Arnault at just under $63 billion. These two men are in the top the five richest people in the world. We should note that the countries in what used to be Yugoslavia are missing from our list, as are many places in Eastern Europe. These economies still have a long way to go before they produce ultra-rich billionaires.

The situation in the Middle East and Asia reflects the industries dominating these local economies.

Source: HowMuch.net

Russia’s richest person, Alexey Mordashov, made his fortune in steel and investments, while the richest tycoon in Kazakhstan, Vladimir Kim, made his money in mining. China’s and Japan’s wealthiest billionaires both made their way through technology companies, and Philip Ng from Singapore made his money through real estate. Interestingly, the countries west of China stretching toward Syria don’t have any billionaires on our list.

About half the countries in South America are rich enough to produce multi-billionaires, three of whom come from the finance and banking industries.

Source: HowMuch.net

Jorge Paulo Lemann is the richest among the group with a net worth of almost $30 billion. He made his money by investing in breweries, which through a series of mergers and acquisitions became AmBev.

The situation in Africa is telling.

Source: HowMuch.net

Only eight people make our list of billionaires, many of whom come from old industries like construction, diamonds and food. Only two people are from the banking and investment industries. Most importantly, look at all the countries with a light shade of green. Our map indicates at a quick glance how far Africa needs to go in terms of developing its economies.

Oceana contributes four people to our list, and they all have more than $10 billion through a variety of industries.

Source: HowMuch.net

Budi Hartono for instance boasts a fortune of $11.5 billion and has a background in banking and tobacco, and Gina Rinehart ($16.8B) from Australia made her money in mining.

*  *  *

Take a look at our list breaking down the ten richest people in the world regardless of where they live, together with their estimated net worth ($ billion), how they made their money, and where they live.

1. Jeff Bezos: $95.1B - Amazon.com in United States ($100.3 Billion as of Friday)

2. Amancio Ortega: $74.4B - Zara in Spain

3. Carlos Slim Helu: $64.9B - Telecom in Mexico

4. Bernard Arnault: $62.9B - LVMH in France

5. Ma Huateng: $43.4B - Internet media in China

6. Mukesh Ambani: $39.2B - Petrochemicals, oil & gas in India

7. Li Ka-shing: $33.8B – Diversified endeavors in Hong Kong

8. Maria Franca Fissolo: $30.2B - Nutella, chocolates in Italy

9. Jorge Paulo Lemann: $30.1B - Beer and Brazil

10. Beate Heister & Karl Albrecht Jr.: $29.2B - Supermarkets in Germany

Consider this fact. If you add together the fortune of these ten people, you’d have over half a trillion dollars. That’s a ton of money, and the big lesson is that billionaires can come from a variety of different industries. But once again, what’s the missing continent with the furthest to grow? Africa. 

"Worst Case Scenario" Looms As Merkel"s "Jamaica Coalition" Collapses; EUR Sinks

We warned on Friday that German Chancellor Angela Merkel faced a "night of the long knives" in her efforts to bring together the co-called "Jamaica" coalition of four parties and after a desperate weekend of talks, Bloomberg reports Merkel"s efforts at forming a coalition have failed meaning a second election looms and sending the euro sliding.

As Bloomberg reports, talks on forming German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s next government collapsed, throwing the future of Europe’s longest-serving leader into doubt and potentially pointing the world’s fourth-biggest economy toward new elections.

After a 12-hour negotiating session that ended shortly before midnight Sunday, the Free Democratic Party walked out of the exploratory talks, saying the differences with the Green party were too great to bridge.

Merkel has sought for four weeks to enlist the two smaller parties for her fourth-term coalition.

“It’s better not to govern than to govern badly,” FDP head Christian Lindner told reporters in Berlin.

No further coalition talks were scheduled, he said. There was no immediate comment from Merkel.

EURUSD is down aropund 40 pips on the news...

As MINT Partners" Bill Blain noted previously, Germans are not used to multiple elections – and a second vote early next year would be massive negative for Merkel herself – she may even have to stand down if coalition looks like falling. That could be massive shock.

As a result, the prospects for more volatile European peripheral markets, particularly Greece and Italy, are likely to be exacerbated, and we might well see some of the currency and European stock market froth blow away in coming days as the scale of the “German Problem” becomes clearer.

• My worst case Germany scenario is a second election early next year, political uncertainty as Mutti Merkel finds herself squeezed out, and a scramble to build a new coalition government in her aftermath.


• The best case scenario isn’t much better: that Merkel manages to forge a new coalition, but it will be a long drawn out affair and the resulting administration will be vulnerable, weak and fraxious.

These sound like German problems, but they mean the “leader of Europe” is likely to be entirely inward focused in coming months/years.. at a time when the European union will be facing a host of new issues regarding closer union, banking union and reform of the ESM, bailout and QE policies. There will also be new potential crisis points – Italian elections next year, Greece bailout, renewed immigration crisis or a blow-up with Trump. And these are just the known unknowns.

This has profound implications for the so-called French/German axis as it slides towards Paris. We are not going to see a new German government “waste time” on issues like closer EU union, European Banking Union, or critical finance issues like reforming ESM or new approaches on QE and Bailout funds. Forget Wiedemann for ECB president, it’s more likely to another Frenchman (Trichet II) – I’m sure its already underway. In short.. Germany negotiations could get very fraxious while Europe is dragged down in its wake. I doubt the markets have discounted it yet.

Another False Flag Terror ADMISSION: Snipers In the Ukraine “Protests”

Snipers Fired At BOTH Police and Protesters In Ukraine

Remember the protests in Ukraine which led to the old leader being replaced?

If you’ll recall,  the ruthless slaughter of people by snipers was the event which turned world opinion against the Ukrainian Prime Minister, and resulted in him having to flee the country.

Italy’s 11th largest newspaper – Il Giornale – reported on an admission by several of the snipers (Google translation) :

“Everyone started shooting two or three shots at a time. It went on for fifteen, twenty minutes. We had no choice. We were ordered to shoot both on the police and the demonstrators, without any difference. I was totally outraged.

 

“So Georgian Alexander Revazishvilli remembers the tragic shootout of 20 February 2014 in Kiev when a group of mysterious snipers opened fire on crowds and cops massacring over 80 people. That massacre has horrified the world and changed the destiny of Ukraine by forcing President Viktor Yanukovich accused of organizing the shootout. But the massacre also changed the fates of Europe and our country, triggering the crisis that will lead to sanctions against Putin’s Russia. Sanctions revealed a boomerang for the Italian economy ( Watch the video ).

 

Revazishvilli’s confessions and two other Georgians – gathered by writers in the documentary “Ukraine, the hidden truths” aired tonight at 23.30 on Matrix, Channel 5 – reveal a different and disconcerting truth. The truth of a massacre and the same opposition that accused Yanukovych and his Russian allies. Revazishvilli and his two companions – met and interviewed in the documentary – are a former member of the security services of former Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili and two former militants of his party. Hired in Tbilisi by Mamuka Mamulashvili, Saakashvili’s military adviser, are tasked with supporting – along with other Georgian and Lithuanian volunteers – ongoing demonstrations in Kiev in return for a $5,000 final fee.

 

***

 

The following day, Mamulashvili and the leaders of the protest explain to volunteers who will face a police assault at the Conservatory building and at the Ukraine hotel. In that case – he says – we must shoot at the square and sow the chaos. But one of the protagonists confesses to having received another explanation, much more comprehensive. “When Mamulashvili arrived, I also asked him. Things are getting complicated, we have to start shooting – he replied that we can not go to the pre-election presidential elections. But who should shoot? “I asked. He replied that who and where it did not matter, you had to shoot somewhere so much to sow chaos. “

 

“It did not matter if we fired at a tree, a barricade, or the molotov. confirms another volunteer – what counts was sowing confusion.

BBC interviewed the head of the opposition’s security forces at the time, who confirms that snipers were killing both sides … protesters and police:

And the former Ukranian government security boss said the same thing. Specifically, he said:

Former chief of Ukraine’s Security Service has confirmed allegations that snipers who killed dozens of people during the violent unrest in Kiev operated from a building controlled by the opposition on Maidan square.

 

Shots that killed both civilians and police officers were fired from the Philharmonic Hall building in Ukraine’s capital, former head of the Security Service of Ukraine Aleksandr Yakimenko told Russia 1 channel. The building was under full control of the opposition and particularly the so-called Commandant of Maidan self-defense Andrey Parubiy who after the coup was appointed as the Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, Yakimenko added.

So the chief of the government’s security forces, the head of the opposition’s security forces, and the snipers themselves  all admit the snipers were killing both protesters and police.

Similarly:

[Ukrainian Health Minister Oleh] Musiy, who spent more than two months organizing medical units on Maidan, said that on Feb. 20 roughly 40 civilians and protesters were brought with fatal bullet wounds to the makeshift hospital set up near the square. But he said medics also treated three police officers whose wounds were identical.

 

Forensic evidence, in particular the similarity of the bullet wounds, led him and others to conclude that snipers were targeting both sides of the standoff at Maidan — and that the shootings were intended to generate a wave of revulsion so strong that it would topple Yanukovych and also justify a Russian invasion.

And the Estonian foreign minister – after visiting Ukraine – told the EU foreign affairs minister that the Maidan opposition deployed the snipers – and fired on both the protesters and the police – to discredit the former government of Ukraine.

The Snipers Were Associated with the Maidan Protesters

While the mainstream media has proclaimed that the sniper fire was definitely from government forces, some of the above-cited sources dispute that claim.

Additionally, BBC reported at the time:

Reporting for Newsnight, Gabriel Gatehouse said he saw what looked like a protester shooting out of a window at the BBC’s Kiev base, the Ukraine Hotel.

BBC interviewed a Maidan protester who admitted that he fired a sniper rifle at police from the Conservatory, and that he was guided by a military veteran within the Maidan resistance. Here are actual pictures a reporter took of Maidan snipers, recently published by BBC:

(There were reportedly at least 10 Maidan snipers firing from the Conservatory.)

The Frankfurther Allgemein reported that Maidan commander Volodymyr Parasjuk controlled the Conservatory at the time:

Volodymyr Parasjuk – the leader in “self-defense units” of the revolution who had called the night of Yanukovich’s escape, on the stage of Maidan to storm the presidential residence one year ago.

 

On the day of the massacre Parasjuk was staying with his unit in the colonnaded building of the Kiev Conservatory right at the Maidan. In the days before the death toll had risen, and the fighters grew the conviction alone with limited power as before will not be able to overthrow Yanukovych. “There were at that time many guys who said you have to take the weapon and attack,” said Parasjuk recalls. “Many,” he himself had since long ago it had firearms, often their officially registered hunting rifles.

Tagesschau – a German national and international television news service produced by state-run Norddeutscher Rundfunk on behalf of the German public-service television network ARD – also reported in 2014 that at least some of the sniper fire came from protesters.

And remember, the snipers who admitted firing at both sides were associated with Mikhail Saakashvili and his party.  Saakashvili was a huge supporter of the Maidan protesters from the very beginning.  As Newsweek reports:

Saakashvili was a supporter of the Ukrainian revolution since the beginning of Euromaidan ….

Indeed, the Maidan protesters who deposed the old Ukrainian prime minister were so pleased with events that they rewarded Saakashvili by appointing him leader of Ukraine’s largest region.

Former AP and Newsweek reporter Robert Parry summarizes what kind of guy Saakashvili is:

The latest political move by the … regime in Ukraine was to foist on the people of Odessa the autocratic Georgian ex-President Mikheil Saakashvili, a neoconservative favorite and currently a fugitive from his own country which is seeking him on charges of human rights violations and embezzlement.

 

***

 

According to a New York Times profile last September, Saakashvili was there “writing a memoir, delivering ‘very well-paid’ speeches, helping start up a Washington-based think tank and visiting old boosters like Senator John McCain and Victoria Nuland, the assistant secretary of state.”

 

McCain and Nuland were key neocon backers of the coup that ousted Yanukovych and touched off the bloody civil war that has killed thousands of ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine, while also reviving Cold War tensions between the West and Russia. Before the coup, McCain urged on right-wing protesters with promises of U.S. support and Nuland was overheard hand-picking Ukraine’s new leadership, saying “Yats is the guy,” a reference to Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who became prime minister after the coup.

 

***

 

The Georgian prosecutors also have charged Saakashvili with human rights violations for his violent crackdown on political protesters in 2007.

Context: Sniper Attacks As False Flag Terror

Random shootings are a type of false flag terror.    For example, in 1985 – as part of the “Gladio” false flag terror campaign (see number 12) – snipers attacked and shot shoppers in supermarkets randomly in Belgium, killing twenty-eight and leaving many wounded.

Shooting both sides is an especially big red flag for a false flag …

Specifically, when authoritarian regimes want to break up protests, they might shoot protesters. On the other hand, when violent protesters shoot government employees, they might be trying to overthrow the government.

But when secretive snipers kill both protesters and the police, it is an indication of a “false flag” attack meant to sow chaos, anger, disgust and a lack of legitimacy.

This has happened many times over the years. For example:

• Unknown snipers reportedly killed both Venezuelan government and opposition protesters in the attempted 2002 coup

• Unknown snipers fired during Thailand’s 2010 protests, killing both police and protesters

• And see this and this