France: Anti-Christian Attacks Rise 245 Percent

While racist, anti-Muslim, and anti-Semitic attacks have seen a huge fall since 2008, those on Christian places of worship more than doubled in this period of time, France’s interior ministry reported last week.

Having documented a record number of anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim attacks in 2015, the French government spent €100 million on a huge anti-populist campaign to reduce Islamophobia, racism, and anti-Semitism.

Subsequently, racist, anti-Semitic, and anti-Muslim attacks fell sharply in 2016 with the former seeing a decline of 58.5 per cent and the latter a drop of 57.6 per cent. These attacks are defined as being fires, violence, degradation, and threats — comments, inscriptions, insulting letters.

In this year, attacks on Christian places of worship have increased by 17.4 per cent in 2016 compared to 2015. Racist attacks, meanwhile, dropped by 23.7 per cent (608 versus 797).

The sharp drop in incidents of an Islamophobic or anti-Semitic nature was welcomed by the French government, who credited the figures as the “fruit of the government’s action plan”.

“Thanks to an unprecedented mobilisation of state services, we have already achieved very encouraging results, as evidenced by the figures for 2016. This gives us much satisfaction”, said interior minister Bruno Le Roux.


The minister warned against “triumphalism”, however, telling Agence France-Presse: “Faced with racism, anti-Semitism, anti-Muslim, and anti-Christian acts, we must not slacken our guard, quite the contrary.”

“We continue, and we will continue always to fight against these absolutely intolerable acts, which sully the Republic” he added, insisting that France will combat ‘intolerance’ with “maximum vigilance”.

Le Figaro reported that acts which target Christians now account for 90 per cent assaults on places of worship.

The newspaper points out that, while it is to be expected that attacks on churches are the most plentiful because they exist in the largest number, cases in which Christian places of worship were defiled saw a huge rise between 2008 and 2016.

The government says the majority of the 949 attacks on churches have “no religious motive”, but that there was a possible “satanic motivation” in 14 cases and an “anarchist” motivation in 25. However, since 2008 assaults on Christian places of worship have risen by 245 per cent.

Last year in Dülmen, following the arrival of well over a million migrants in Germany, local media said “not a day goes by” without attacks on Christian religious statues.

Credit to Breitbart.com

US Tanks, Troops Arrive In Estonia As Part Of NATO Anti-Russia Build Up

As part of continued a NATO build-up and US efforts to counter an alleged Russian threat, US military hardware, including M1A2 Abrams battle tanks and Bradley infantry fighting vehicles have arrived in the northern Estonian town of Tapa, shortly after similar deployments were made to other Eastern European nations including Poland, Bulgaria, Romania and Germany. 

"The movement of equipment and troops into and around Europe marks the beginning of a continuous rotation of armored brigade combat teams from the United States as part of Operation Atlantic Resolve," the US Defense Department said in a statement, commenting on the move. It added that "Atlantic Resolve is a demonstration of continued US commitment to collective security through a series of actions designed to reassure NATO allies and partners of America's dedication to enduring peace and stability in the region in light of the Russian intervention in Ukraine."

In July 2016, NATO members agreed to the “biggest reinforcement since the Cold War,” posting four multinational battalions to Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland.

More than 50 units of US military equipment, including four battle tanks and 15 infantry fighting vehicles, were delivered to Tapa, the Estonian Defense Forces said in a statement. Personnel of the Charlie Company of 68th Armored Regiment's 1st Battalion from the US Army 4th Infantry Division arrived in the town two days earlier, on January 30. Company commander Captain Edward Bachar said the US troops would take part in the Estonian Independence Day parade. Earlier, Bachar also said that his company would begin its expert marksmanship training this week. 

The new unit would replace a paratrooper company of the 173rd Airborne Brigade's 503rd Infantry Regiment, which was deployed to Estonia in September. The paratrooper company would then go back to its permanent base in Italy.  

The Estonian deployment marks a new phase of the Operation Atlantic Resolve, which began in April 2014, following the flaring of tensions between Russia and the West. Atlantic Resolve is perceived by Washington as a demonstration of continued US commitment to the collective security of Europe in the view of alleged Russian “assertiveness.”

As reported previously, last month some 2,800 pieces of US military hardware, including US Abrams tanks, Paladin artillery, Bradley fighting vehicles and 4,000 troops arrived in Europe as part of the operation. These forces subsequently moved to Poland to participate in military drills in late January, and then were deployed across seven countries, including the Baltic States, Bulgaria, Romania and Germany. A headquarters unit is stationed in Germany. 

In addition to American troops going to Poland, NATO members Germany, Canada and Britain are also contributing to the significant NATO forces buildup in Eastern Europe and are sending battalions of up to 1,000 troops each to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

Apart from the military buildup on Russian borders, the US and NATO strategy also includes conducting continuous, enhanced multinational training and security cooperation activities with US and NATO partners in eastern Europe. Since the Operation began, these military exercises have been conducted in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary. In mid-January, Estonia and Lithuania also signed agreements with the US regulating the status and deployment framework of American soldiers and hardware on the territory of the two Baltics states, which were dubbed “first of its kind.”

As RT adds, the agreements provided a legal framework for the presence of US military personnel and their family members in the two Baltic States, as well as the use of the local military sites by American troops. They also enable a range of joint “defense-related activities.”

Meanwhile, while NATO members continue to point toward perceived “Russian aggression,” calling it “a source of instability,” Russia has repeatedly denied that it poses any kind of threat. Moscow has also expanded its own military training and increased its strategic nuclear capabilities in areas such as Kaliningrad, its western exclave. Russia also tried to ease tensions by proposing enhanced cooperation with NATO on multiple levels in August. The proposal covered such fields as combating terrorism and “cooperation to avoid incidents at sea and in the air” in border areas with NATO countries.

For now, Trump's formal stance on the ongoing Ukraine conflict, as well as NATO build up and encirclement of Russia has yet to be determined.

Credit to Zero Hedge

Super Bowl GAGA

How Is That Immigration Working Out for You France?

Mass terrorism, the consequence of uncontrolled and unscreened immigration.

The French are protesting President Trump’s desire to screen immigrants from the Middle East.  I would like to ask the French a question: How’s that unscreened immigration working out for you France?

What part of the phrase it is stupid to admit anyone to your house or country that you are not familiar with.

Did you forget about….?

Jan. 7-9, 2015: Charlie Hebdo And Kosher Supermarket Attacks, 17 Dead

Or, did you Frenchy’s forget about….?

Feb. 3, 2015: Knife Attack Against Soldiers Guarding Jewish Center

Or maybe, you forgot about this event…..?

April 19, 2015: Student Accused In Terror Plot And Murder

How could you forget about…..?

June 26, 2015: Man Beheads His Boss, 1 Dead

Or, did you forget about….

Aug. 21, 2015: Gunman Thwarted By Passengers On Train

Or did you forget about……

Nov. 13, 2015: Shootings At Bataclan Theater And Other Paris Nightlife Spots, 130 Dead

IS George Soros really paying you enough to be this stupid, Mr. Frenchy? Maybe the French should have enacted the pre-screeing and a lot more people would have been spared.

 Credit to Common Sense

China Tests Its New Super-Accurate Missile During War Games

The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force has begun practicing the deployment of medium-range Dongfeng (DF) missiles capable of reaching strategic US and Japanese bases near China, the latest iteration of Beijing’s war game-preparations for an armed conflict in the South and East China Seas.

 DF-16 missiles, first unveiled to the public in late 2015, were tested in the deep forest during missile-launch exercises in recent weeks, according to video footage of the war games published by the Chinese Ministry of National Defense.

The DF-16 missile touts a level of accuracy comparable to a cruise missile, Shi Hong, executive editor of Shipborne Weapons, told China Daily. To quantify this precision, the missiles can travel some 625 miles, carry up to three nuclear warheads at a combined weight of one ton, and strike within five feet of a programmed target.

The DF-16's range puts it in striking distance of the US military base on Okinawa, as well as the Japanese islands, Taiwan, and the Philippines, The Japan Times reports. The latest medium-range ballistic missiles developed by China work via two phases that allow the missiles to alter trajectory mid-flight, the news outlet added. This feature of the DF-16 makes it possible to maneuver around Taiwan’s missile defense systems, The Japan Times notes.

Beijing’s PLA Rocket Force could launch the DF-16 missiles from anywhere on the Chinese mainland, and perhaps even from China’s lone aircraft carrier Liaoning, given that the missiles are deployed from a mobile, 10-wheeled platform.

Recently, Beijing retaliated to US President Donald Trump’s communication with Taiwan by testing ten DF-21 missiles, which have a reported range of at least 900 miles. Chinese news agency Xinhua wrote that DF-21-class missiles can "destroy US Asia Pacific bases at any time." Military expert Rick Fisher told the Washington Free Beacon that "the PLA is banging some drums to provide background for military psychological warfare."

Credit to Sputnik

Which Assets Are Most Likely To Survive The "System Reset"?

Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

Your skills, knowledge and and social capital will emerge unscathed on the other side of the re-set wormhole. Your financial assets held in centrally controlled institutions will not.

Longtime correspondent C.A. recently asked a question every American household should be asking: which assets are most likely to survive the "system re-set" that is now inevitable? It's a question of great import because not all assets are equal in terms of survivability in crisis, when the rules change without advance notice.

If you doubt the inevitability of a system implosion/re-set, please read Is America In A Bubble (And Can It Ever Return To "Normal")? This brief essay presents charts that reveal a sobering economic reality: America is now dependent on multiple asset bubbles never popping--something history suggests is not possible.

It isn't just a financial re-set that's inevitable--it's a political and social re-set as well.For more on why this is so, please consult my short book Why Our Status Quo Failed and Is Beyond Reform.

The charts below describe the key dynamics driving a system re-set. Earned income (wages) as a share of GDP has been falling for decades: this means labor is receiving a diminishing share of economic growth. Since costs and debt continue rising while incomes are declining or stagnating, this asymmetry eventually leads to insolvency.

The "fix" for insolvency has been higher debt and debt-based spending--in essence, borrowing from future income to fund more consumption today. But each unit of new debt is generating less economic activity/growth. This is called diminishing returns: eventually the costs of servicing the additional debt exceed the increasingly trivial gains.

What happens when the bubbles pop, despite massive central bank/state interventions? The entire socio-political/financial system goes through a "system re-set" in which all the fantasy-based valuations, political denials, false promises and fraudulent claims collapse in a heap.

In a crisis, the privileged Elites will change the rules in a desperate attempt to expropriate the income and wealth of the bottom 99.5% to preserve their own power.

The trick is to do so in ways that won't spark an immediate political insurrection.

We can better understand their policy choices by asking: What's easy to expropriate, what's difficult to expropriate?

Those assets that are easy to expropriate will be expropriated first. Those that are difficult to expropriate are far less likely to be grabbed, due to the high costs of expropriation and the high risks of sparking a political insurrection.

History suggests the privileged Elites will pursue two basic strategies to expropriate the income and wealth of non-elites:

1. They will expropriate what is easy to expropriate: financial assets in centralized institutions the state controls: banks, brokerage accounts, insurance policies, etc.

2. They will use the time-honored "stealth expropriation" methods: inflation and taxes.

Any "money" held in a centrally controlled institution can be expropriated overnight.The rules will change without warning, so there will be no opportunity to escape the system.

Direct expropriation takes many forms. Your funds could be "bailed-in" (transferred to the bank). Large currency bills could be declared worthless. IRA and 401K accounts could be transferred into government bonds, to "protect the account owners from risky investments." (Naturally, any expropriation will be presented as "for your own good.")

Or a new currency could be issued that strips away 90% of the purchasing power of the old currency. It could be a New Dollar, an SDR global currency, or a state-issued cryptocurrency. The point is to strip away 90% of the wealth held in the old currency.

Indirect "stealth" expropriation has several forms: slow currency devaluation, also known as inflation, or higher taxes and junk fees (not called taxes, but you receive no additional value for the higher fees).

The end result of these policies is you may receive the $2,000 monthly pension you were promised, but after inflation, currency devaluation and taxes, your real purchasing power is $100 in today's currency.

So what's difficult to expropriate? I present some answers in my books An Unconventional Guide to Investing in Troubled Times and Get a Job, Build a Real Career and Defy a Bewildering Economy.

It's impossible to expropriate one's skills, experience and social capital. These are intangible forms of capital and so they cannot be confiscated like gold, currency, land, etc.

Land and homes are difficult to expropriate for two reasons: private property is the backbone of capitalism and democracy, and the state confiscating private property would very likely spark a political insurrection that would diminish or threaten the power and wealth of the privileged Elites.

Secondly, it's very costly for the state to maintain the productive output of real property it has confiscated. Guards must be posted, sabotage repaired, and the immense difficulties of coercing a rebellious populace to continue working what they once owned for the benefit of the state and its privileged Elites must be solved and paid for.

The state can expropriate farms, orchards and workshops for back taxes (or some similar extra-legal methodology), but how do you force people to work these properties productively?

As a general rule, whatever the super-wealthy own will be protected from expropriation. Private real property is the foundation of the Elites' wealth, and while the land of debt-serfs may well be confiscated for back taxes (the wealthy will buy exemptions from rising taxes), those who own land and buildings free and clear constitute a political force to be reckoned with.

As I discuss in my book Resistance, Revolution, Liberation: A Model for Positive Change, there's one other asset the state and its ruling Elites cannot expropriate: community.

The state will also have difficulty confiscating assets that are outside its reach. This explains the propularity of owning assets in other nations, and the debate over cryptocurrencies: will states be able to confiscate all cryptocurrencie at will, or is that technically unfeasible?

The main takeaway is this: your skills, knowledge and and social capital will emerge unscathed on the other side of the re-set wormhole. Land and real property you own free and clear (no debt) is likely to remain in your possession, as long as you can pay soaring taxes/junk fees during the crisis phase. Your financial assets held in centrally controlled institutions will not make it through unscathed; they are simply too easy for central authorities to expropriate.

Credit to Zero Hedge

FEBRUARY 6th, 2017...MORE THAN 1 OBJECT BELOW THE SUN!

Record radiation level detected at Fukushima reactor could kill human from even brief exposure

(Natural News) Radiation levels inside a damaged nuclear reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan have hit a record high since the plant suffered a triple nuclear meltdown almost six years ago. The latest readings – described by experts as “unimaginable” – now pose a serious challenge as officials prepare to dismantle the disaster-hit facility safely.

Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), the plant’s operator, said atmospheric readings inside the containment reactor No 2 are as high as 530 sieverts an hour, which is far greater than the previous record of 73 sieverts an hour. Reactor No 2 is one of three reactors that experienced a nuclear meltdown when the plant was crippled by a huge earthquake and tsunami in March 2011. (RELATED: See more news about the Fukushima disaster at FukushimaWatch.com)
A one-square-meter hole created by melting nuclear fuel

Tepco said recent image analysis revealed a one-square-meter hole in the metal grating beneath the reactor’s pressure vessel. The hole was probably created by melting nuclear fuel that penetrated the vessel, Tepco’s spokesman Tatsuhiro Yamagishi told AFP. Also, for the first time since the disaster, images were released showing dark lumps beneath reactor No 2. Experts believe the dark matter to be melted uranium fuel rods.

Even though specially-made robots designed to probe the underwater depths around the reactors have previously crumbled and shut down due to the highly toxic conditions, Tepco intends to send another remote-controlled robot to check the actual conditions inside the containment vessel.

The robot, however, will not last long. They are designed to withstand exposure to a total of 1,000 sieverts, meaning it will only survive for less than two hours in the presence of these dangerously high radiation levels. Nonetheless, Tepco’s spokesman Tatsuhiro Yamagishi said that the captured images will offer very useful information regarding the actual conditions inside the reactor.
A huge challenge in the history of nuclear power

These extraordinary high readings will make it very hard, and dangerous, for thousands of workers involved in dismantling the power plant, a process expected to take about four decades. Furthermore, medical professionals have never considered dealing with this level of radiation in their work, an official of the National Institute of Radiological Sciences told Japan Today.

To give you an idea of the severity, radiation doses of only 0.1 sieverts already significantly increase the risk of cancer. A single dose of one sievert is enough to cause radiation sickness, nausea, infertility, loss of hair, and cataracts. Exposure to five sieverts could kill half of those exposed within a month while a single dose of 10 sieverts could prove fatal within weeks.

After six years, Tepco and its business partners at the Fukushima Daiichi plant have yet to identify the location and condition of melted fuel in the three most severely damaged nuclear reactors. As reported by The Guardian, “the government has now estimated the cost of decommissioning the plant and decontaminating the surrounding area, as well as paying compensations and storing radioactive waste, to rise to 21.5tn yen [or about $190 billion],” which is nearly double the estimate released in 2013.

Even if they manage to clean up this nuclear mess shortly, Yosuke Yamashiki, Doctor of Engineering from Kyoto University, told RT that the complete reduction of the radiation will take hundreds of thousands of years. (RELATED: For more info on how to prepare yourself for future disasters, visit Preparedness.news)


Credit to Natural News