Russia’s Pivoting To The Horn Of Africa Via Eritrea & The UAE

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met Eritrea’s Foreign Minister Osman Saleh, August 31, 2018, Sochi, Russia

 

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov lauded his country’s relationship with Eritrea and informed the world about Moscow’s plans to build a logistics center there.

He was speaking alongside his Eritrean counterpart at a press conference in Sochi after their bilateral meeting, which he also noted included discussions about building regional transport corridors, pipelines, and opening up a Russian language department in one of Asmara’s universities. Lavrov also said that the UNSC sanctions against Eritrea that were imposed in 2009 after reports that the country was aiding Somalia’s Al-Shaabab should be lifted, and he praised Eritrea for all that it’s done in the name of regional peace over the past few months in view of its rapidly moving rapprochement with Ethiopia that completely transformed the geopolitical situation in the Horn of Africa.

New Rumblings In The Horn Of Africa Over Ethiopia’s Grand Renaissance Dam

Tensions are rising between Egypt and Ethiopia over the latter’s Grand Renaissance Dam.

Ethiopia on the Brink?

Members of the Oromo, Ogaden and Amhara communities in South Africa demonstrate on August 18 against the ongoing crackdown in the Oromo and Amhara regions of Ethiopia. (GULSHAN KHAN/AFP/Getty Images)

 

 

Could ongoing protests lead to social breakdown?

Civil unrest is growing in Ethiopia, Africa’s second-most populous nation. Upset by inequality and systemic corruption, members of Ethiopia’s two largest districts have taken to the streets. Since November last year, the protesters have faced off against strong government crackdowns.

Eighty percent of the country lives in poverty. Famine threatens 15 million residents. Many are ready to take out their frustrations on the government. But instability fosters its own problems, and opportunists in the region are watching closely.

Sweden: Summer Inferno of Sexual Assaults

Scenes from a Malmö music festival in summer of 2015… Left: Four young men surround and sexually assault a young woman. Right: Police arrest a suspect, as sexual assault victims cry in the background. The photographer reported that Swedish girls were sexually assaulted by groups of young men “of foreign background.”

 

• Almost all the perpetrators of sexual assaults who attacked in groups and who have been apprehended, are citizens of Afghanistan, Eritrea and Somalia — three of the four largest immigrant groups in Sweden who fall into the category of “unaccompanied refugee children.”
• A few days later, it turned out that many of the perpetrators who sexually assaulted women at the “Putte i parken” music festival in Karlstad wore the “Don’t grope” bracelet.
• Many people were therefore aghast to learn that the organizers of the Trästocksfestivalen music festival in Skellefteå had decided to arrange free bus rides to the festival for the local “unaccompanied refugee children.” They claimed they were “proud to be the first music festival in Sweden that encourages a significant increase of newly arrived migrants in the audience.” By the time the Trästocksfestivalen ended, the police counted twelve reported sexual assaults.
• Apparently, Swedish girls and women should learn to live with being groped and raped — or leave the public space altogether. The latter seems quite in line with what Islamic sharia law prescribes.

In the wake of the New Year’s Eve attacks in Cologne, Germany, news broke in Sweden that a large number of sexual assaults against girls and women had occurred at the music festival “We Are Sthlm” [short for Stockholm] in both 2014 and 2015, but had been covered up by both the police and the media. The National Police Commissioner, Dan Eliasson, immediately launched an investigation to find out the scope of the problem.

Germany: Migrant Crime Skyrockets

• The actual number of crimes in Germany committed by migrants in 2015 may exceed 400,000.
• The report does not include crime data from North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state in Germany and also the state with the largest number of migrants. North Rhine-Westphalia’s biggest city is Cologne, where, on New Year’s Eve, hundreds of German women were sexually assaulted by migrants.
• “For years the policy has been to leave the [German] population in the dark about the actual crime situation… The citizens are being played for fools. Rather than tell the truth, they [government officials] are evading responsibility and passing blame onto the citizens and the police.” — André Schulz, director, Association of Criminal Police, Germany.
• 10% of the migrants from the chaos in Iraq and Syria have reached Europe so far: “Eight to ten million migrants are still on the way.” — Gerd Müller, Development Minister.

Migrants committed 208,344 crimes in 2015, according to a confidential police report that was leaked to the German newspaper, Bild. This figure represents an 80% increase over 2014 and works out to around 570 crimes committed by migrants every day, or 23 crimes each hour, between January and December 2015.

The Islamization of Germany in 2015

“We are importing religious conflict”

• A mob of a thousand men of “Arab or North African” origin sexually assaulted more than 100 German women in downtown Cologne on New Year’s Eve. Similar attacks also occurred in Hamburg and Stuttgart. Cologne’s Mayor Henriette Reker, said that “under no circumstances” should the crimes be attributed to asylum seekers. Instead, she blamed the victims for the assaults.
• “There is nothing wrong with being proud German patriots. There is nothing wrong with wanting Germany to remain free and democratic. There is nothing wrong with preserving our own Judeo-Christian civilization. That is our duty.” — Geert Wilders, Dutch politician, addressing a rally in Dresden.
• “We are importing Islamic extremism, Arab anti-Semitism, national and ethnic conflicts of other peoples, as well as a different understanding of society and law. German security agencies are unable to deal with these imported security problems, and the resulting reactions from the German population.” — From a leaked government document, published by Die Welt.
• Germany will spend at least €17 billion ($18.3 billion) on asylum seekers in 2016 — Die Welt.
• Saudi Arabia is preparing to finance the construction of 200 new mosques in Germany to accommodate asylum seekers. — Frankfurter Allgemeine.

Germany’s Muslim population skyrocketed by more than 850,000 in 2015, for the first time pushing the total number of Muslims in the country to nearly six million.

Swedish Police: 14,000 Migrants Due For Deportation Have Vanished

The numbers come from the National Border Police Section in the National Operations Division, and show of 22,000 individuals due to be sent home after having their asylum applications turned down, some 14,000 have vanished off the police radar, reports Afton Bladet.

China plans a military base in Djibouti

A small follow-up article from a previous post:

 

Beijing: China has announced plans to establish its first overseas military outpost in the Horn of Africa nation of Djibouti, amid a sweeping overhaul of its military designed to make the world’s largest army better equipped to project force abroad.

China’s Defence Ministry refrained from calling the new installation a military base, instead saying the construction of “military supporting facilities” would help provide logistical support for Chinese peacekeeping and anti-piracy patrols in the Gulf of Aden. But analysts say the facility has potential to become a platform for operations in Africa and the Middle East.

European Union continuing to fund African nations that are fuelling migrant crisis

Brussels likely to give £150m grant to Eritrea, despite large numbers of its people joining exodus to Europe

Brussels is continuing to give large-scale aid grants to African nations with repressive governments, despite evidence that their woeful human rights records are fuelling Europe’s migrant crisis.

The Telegraph has learned that Brussels may give nearly £150m in aid funding to Eritrea, a country dubbed “The African North Korea” because of its practice of conscripting menfolk into near-indefinite military service.

In 2014, some one in five of all migrants fleeing across the Mediterranean in people-smuggling boats were Eritreans, according to the figures from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Sweden: ‘No Apartments, No Jobs, No Shopping Without a Gun’

The week after the double murder at IKEA in Västerås, where a man from Eritrea who had been denied asylum grabbed some knives and stabbed Carola and Emil Herlin to death, letters and emails poured into the offices of Swedish Prime Minister (PM) Stefan Löfven. Angry, despondent and desperate Swedes have pled with the Social Democratic PM to stop filling the country with criminal migrants from the Third World or, they write, there is a serious risk of hatred running rampant in Sweden. One woman suggested that because the Swedish media will not address these issues, Löfven should start reading foreign newspapers, and wake up to the fact that Sweden is sinking fast.

Germany: Migrants’ Rape Epidemic

“We Are the Biggest Brothel in Munich”

• Although the rape took place in June, police kept silent about it for nearly three months, until local media published a story about the crime. According to an editorial comment in the newspaper Westfalen-Blatt, police are refusing to go public about crimes involving refugees and migrants because they do not want to give legitimacy to critics of mass migration.
• A 13-year-old Muslim girl was raped by another asylum seeker at a refugee facility in Detmold, a city in west-central Germany. The girl and her mother reportedly fled their homeland to escape a culture of sexual violence.
• Approximately 80% of the refugees/migrants at the shelter in Munich are male… the price for sex with female asylum seekers is ten euros. — Bavarian Broadcasting (Bayerischer Rundfunk).
• Police in the Bavarian town of Mering, where a 16-year-old-girl was raped on September 11, have issued a warning to parents not to allow their children to go outside unaccompanied. In the Bavarian town of Pocking, administrators of the Wilhelm-Diess-Gymnasium have warned parents not to let their daughter’s wear revealing clothing in order to avoid “misunderstandings.”
• “When Muslim teenage boys go to open air swimming pools, they are overwhelmed when they see girls in bikinis. These boys, who come from a culture where for women it is frowned upon to show naked skin, will follow girls and bother them without their realizing it. Naturally, this generates fear.” — Bavarian politician, quoted in Die Welt.
• A police raid on the Munich refugee facility found that guards hired to provide security at the site were trafficking drugs and weapons and were turning a blind eye to the prostitution.
• Meanwhile, the raping of German women by asylum seekers is becoming commonplace.

A growing number of women and young girls housed in refugee shelters in Germany are being raped, sexually assaulted and even forced into prostitution by male asylum seekers, according to German social work organizations with first-hand knowledge of the situation.

ISIS terrorists ‘sneak into Europe disguised as migrants’ – sparking fears of bomb attacks

HORDES of Islamic State members have reportedly sneaked into Europe along with desperate migrants – sparking fears of terror attacks on the continent.

ISIS fanatics have taken advantage of porous borders by travelling from North Africa to Italy on boats packed with refugees, according to terrorism experts.

Now it is feared that the notorious group, which controls much of Iraq and Syria, could target Europe within months.

Russian Ambassadors Discuss Invading Miami, California In Leaked Call

 

A leaked conversation between two Russian ambassadors appears to show the diplomats joking about the crisis in Ukraine and the possibility of future incursions in the United States and Eastern Europe.

The video posted under the YouTube account “Michael Berkan” involves Igor Nilokaevich Chubarov and Sergey Viktorovich Bakharev, the Russian ambassadors to the African nations Eritrea and Zimbabwe and Malawi, respectively.

The call begins with Chubarov congratulating Bakharev on Zimbabwe’s vote against the UN resolution that declared Crimea’s referendum invalid. Chubarov expressed surprise that Eritrea abstained from the vote.

From Sea to Shining Sea

Eighteen miles. That’s the width of the Bab el-Mandab passageway, the narrow stretch of ocean separating Djibouti from Yemen that connects the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean to the Red Sea. In strategic terms, this passage is crucial. Control the Bab el-Mandab passage and you control the eastern half of one of the most important shipping lanes in the world.

That is exactly what Iran is looking to do. Few recognize it—but it’s happening under our noses. All you have to do is look at Yemen.

Why You Should Pay Attention to Yemen

Nation by nation, Iran is extending its reach in a bid to rein over the Middle East. If allowed to continue taking control of the world’s strategic chokepoints, Iran can affect the world as it sees fit.

On Tuesday, Iran’s Fars News Agency, citing a spokesman for Yemen’s Revolutionary Forces, reported that “the Yemeni people are deeply interested to establish stronger and very intimate relations with Iran.” According to Fars, the spokesman “reiterated that once the Yemeni people take back power from the Saudi-U.S. pivot, Tehran and Sanaa would certainly develop their ties” (emphasis added).

So, what does Iran expect to gain by establishing a strong presence in Yemen?

Take a look at the accompanying map. Basically, Iran wants Yemen for the same reason it wants Ethiopia, Eritrea and Egypt: to control the Red Sea!

(See full story for map)

Yemen is adjacent to both the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea. It sits on the north side of the Bab el-Mandab passageway. Every ship that passes through this passage—and there are thousands every year—would travel within easy range of Islamist missiles stationed in Yemen. Consider the global ramifications: Nearly 30 percent of global oil supplies, more than 2 million barrels per day, pass through the Suez and the Red Sea. Roughly 20,000 ships, an average of 55 per day, pass through the Suez Canal and Red Sea each year. About 15 percent of global maritime trade travels through the Red Sea.

Talk about power and leverage!

Few see it, but ultimately, this is Iran’s grand strategy for endorsing and promoting the Islamification of Egypt, Ethiopia and Eritrea, and to a lesser extent, Yemen and Djibouti!

Think about the leverage Iran is gaining. It already effectively controls the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. Now, in the 18 months since the Arab Spring touched off the rise of Islamist forces throughout North Africa and the Middle East, Tehran has made enormous strides in gaining influence over the Gulf of Aden, the Bab el-Mandab passageway, the Red Sea and the Suez Canal. If Egypt takes control of the Sinai, which appears imminent, Iran will also gain a foothold in the Gulf of Aqaba. It’s startling, when you really think about it, the way Iran is quietly, steadily—without hardly anyone noticing—locking down the Red Sea!

Full article: Why You Should Pay Attention to Yemen (The Trumpet)