Posted: 26 Mar 2016 11:34 AM PDT ![]() As part of a diversification strategy, Saudi Arabia is to broaden pilgrimage services to reduce its dependence on falling oil revenue, reported the Saudi Gazette newspaper. The pilgrimage industry is the country’s second most important after oil and gas. Nearly two million foreign pilgrims visit the holy city of Mecca annually during Hajj. The figure is expected to reach 2.7 million by 2020. National Tourism Committee member Abdul Ghani Al-Ansari emphasized the need to restructure the sector to make it a major contributor to the national economy. According to economists, religious pilgrimages such as Hajj and Umrah have significant growth potential and the ability to create more job opportunities for young Saudis. The tourism sector contributes $22.6 billion (85 billion Saudi riyals) to Saudi Arabia’s GDP with Hajj and Umrah providing $12 billion (45 billion Saudi riyals). Umrah is an extra, optional pilgrimage to Mecca and does not count as the once-in-a-lifetime Hajj pilgrimage. It can be undertaken at any time of the year, in contrast to Hajj. Economist Abdullah Katib estimates the annual revenue from the Hajj season at $5.3-6.1 billion (20-23 billion Saudi riyals) depending on the number of pilgrims. “About 40 percent of this revenue comes from housing, 15 percent from gifts, 10 percent from food and the remainder from other services,” Katib said. Lately, experts have been repeatedly warning that Saudi Arabia will soon run out of money. Last month the International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicted years of higher taxes and low fuel subsidies for the oil-rich country. Saudi Arabia will need to stop relying so heavily on oil revenues, said the IMF. The Kingdom is facing a budget deficit which is expected to reach $87 billion this year. The crude price crisis has had an impact on the economy as oil sales account for almost 80 percent of the country’s revenue. Saudi Arabia’s foreign reserves fell to $640 billion last year from $737 billion in 2014. The country’s construction sector has been hit hard by spending cuts as the government wants to preserve cash. In an effort to balance the budget Saudi Arabia’s government had already cut spending, sold bonds and tapped foreign reserves to compensate for the negative effect on the economy of the oil price plunge. It is also planning its first sale of international bonds. Source![]() |
Posted: 26 Mar 2016 10:39 AM PDT ![]() Cruz and Kasich are reaching out to delegates in the hopes of undermining one of the billionaire’s big early victories. Donald Trump triumphed in South Carolina’s primary last month. Now, the state could be ground zero for his undoing. Ted Cruz and John Kasich are aggressively mobilizing allies to recruit and elect their own South Carolina loyalists to the national Republican convention — scheduled for late July in Cleveland. All 50 of South Carolina’s delegates are duty-bound to support Trump on a first vote, but interviews with two dozen prospective delegates and party insiders — including several Trump backers — reveal a widespread belief that Cruz and Kasich will succeed in wresting the delegation away from Trump if the nomination fight heads to a second ballot. If Trump is unable to claim the nomination immediately, South Carolina could help tip the scales away from the New York billionaire. “I could never vote for Donald Trump, ever,” said Vic Dabney of Kershaw County, S.C., a Cruz supporter who said he is pursuing a run for delegate. “He shares none of my values.” Source![]() |
Posted: 26 Mar 2016 10:31 AM PDT ![]() The National Enquirer published a story this week accusing Texas Senator Ted Cruz of multiple extramarital affairs. On Friday Ted Cruz blamed Donald Trump and his former consultant Roger Stone for the National Enquirer article on his alleged extramarital affairs. Ted Cruz Cruz told reporters in Wisconsin the story was “all lies.” Cruz then went on to blame the article on Donald Trump and his “henchmen.” Cruz argued Roger Stone has been forwarding the article today on the internet. He thinks Trump campaign is behind this story. Cruz also said the publisher of the National Enquirer is a friend of Donald Trump’s. ![]() But these rumors did not start with Donald Trump. The rumors were started by the Rubio Campaign and GOP elites. Conservative Treehouse reported: It was discovered that weeks ago a large number of Marco Rubio operatives and supporters were trying to bring the sex scandal story to the MSM attention. Under the open guise of #TheThing they were communicating via various twitter feeds and following along to see if the story had been picked up. Most of the activity was centered around March 10th – March 15th. Yesterday the hashtag CruzSexScandal went viral. Today, many of those DC operatives, participants, supporters, consultants, Super-PAC’s and campaign advisors have spent a great deal of time deleting their (The Thing) participation. The peak of their scrubbing coincided with Senator Ted Cruz accusing Donald Trump of planting the story. Obviously, the Rubio Clan didn’t want to see themselves outed as the originating entities. Virtually everyone in the blog-o-sphere who supported Marco Rubio was active, tweeting, re-tweeting, or following the events related to #TheThing. Now they’re running for cover and trying to hide their fingerprints. Anti-Trump Republican operative Rick Wilson tweeted this out weeks ago. (He has since deleted it.) ![]() Then there’s this… The GOP establishment #StopTrump Twitter page, which is dedicated to destroying Donald Trump, posted this tweet on Cruz’s affairs back on March 13th. ![]() This tweet was also deleted. The GOP establishment is trying to hide their tracks. But the internet is forever. It looks like Lyin’ Ted Cruz owes Donald Trump an apology. Source![]() |
Posted: 26 Mar 2016 10:23 AM PDT ![]() It looks like the Ted Cruz campaign may be finished. It’s now more or less confirmed he cheated on his bankster wife and had sex with at least five different women. The New York Times, The Washington Post, Bloomberg News, Politico, and ABC News all knew about the allegations but refused to publish them. Breitbart also declined to run the story back in February. On Friday, The Daily Beast reported Cruz rival Marco Rubio may be responsible. Rubio has his own problems. GOP insiders reportedly confirmed he was a “very extroverted homosexual” in the 1990s. Then there is Hillary Clinton. So far she has escaped having to answer for the email scandal. The Justice Department has refused to act. Obama spokesman Josh Earnest said it’s no big deal. The FBI has enough evidence to move on a prosecution, but nothing is happening. “It will never get to an indictment,” former Inspector General Howard J. Krongard told the New York Post in February. For a national media interested in tawdry celebrity gossip and sex scandals the mishandling of classified information is pretty mundane stuff. It’s true an extramarital affair destroyed the political career of Democrat John Edwards, but that only happened after Edwards admitted the affair and said he fathered Rielle Hunter’s child. Cruz has so far denied the accusations. He blames Donald Trump for the rumor. Our rulers long ago decided Teflon Hillary will be the one to sit in the White House and continue the Obama agenda, which is a continuation of the Bush agenda that he inherited from Bill Clinton, a sexual predator who has yet to answer for his behavior. Clinton was impeached for lying under oath, not molesting and raping women. Not only did Hillary cover for him, but the corporate media did as well, most recently in January when NBC refused to do a story on Juanita Broaddrick, the Arkansas woman who says Bill Clinton raped her in 1978. The wife of a former Federal Reserve boss, Andrea Mitchell, dismissed the possibility of a story. She said there wasn’t “anything new” to report. It remains to be seen if Ted Cruz will get a free pass. He is not the preferred choice of the financial elite and their handpicked political class. GOP apparatchiks wanted Jeb Bush to take the nomination, but push come to shove they will go with Cruz despite his phony tea party rhetoric. His wife is, after all, a Goldman Sachs insider and a CFR member. The political class will do just about anything to make sure Donald Trump does not get the nomination. It doesn’t seem likely the Cruz sex scandal will blow over anytime soon. #CruzSexScandal is now trending on Twitter. Before the internet, the corporate media squashed stories with ease. The rules changed when Matt Drudge reported the Monica Lewinsky scandal and Republicans decided to use it to take down Democrat Bill Clinton. Source![]() |
Posted: 26 Mar 2016 10:13 AM PDT ![]() The murder of a security guard at a nuclear research center located near the Belgian city of Charleroi two days after Brussels attack is not linked to any terrorist activity, prosecutor says dispelling earlier media reports. The Charleroi prosecutor’s office in charge of the case “formally denied” any link between the murder of Didier Prospero, a security guard from the G4S international security firm, who worked at the National Institute of radioelements (IRE ELiT) in the town of Fleurus not far from Charleroi, and any planned terror attack, the Belga news agency reported, citing the Charleroi prosecutor. The prosecutor also denied earlier media reports that Prospero’s access badge was stolen, Belga reports. Prospero was found dead in the bathroom at his home in Froidchapelle by his three children as they returned from school on Thursday. He was shot four times and his dog was also killed. He was in charge of security at the IRE ELiT that specializes in production of radiochemical and radiopharmaceutical products as well as in radioactivity analysis. The case is being handled by criminal investigators while anti-terror specialists are not involved, Belga reports. According to the local Derniere Heure newspaper, the investigation is working on two tracks: a burglary gone wrong and a crime related to the personal affairs of the victim. In the meantime, officials from the Belgian Electrabel energy company that runs the neighboring Charleroi nuclear power plant stated that its personnel is not affected by the incident. “No personnel of Electrabel or one of its sub-contractors working on sites was murdered this week,” a company official said as quoted by the Derniere Heure. The company representative also stressed that authorization needed to get access to the nuclear site is issued by the National Security Authority and, in case of death, all clearances are immediately removed. Earlier on Thursday, Derniere Heure reported that Prospero was a member of a nuclear power plant staff and that his security pass was stolen. The paper also recently reported that Brussels suicide bombers Khalid and Ibrahim El Bakraoui were planning attacks on Belgian nuclear power stations and that the arrest of Paris attacker Salah Abdeslam had accelerated the plans of the terrorists. The brothers reportedly planted a hidden camera in front of the home of the director of the Belgian nuclear research program. The footage with “dozens of hours” of the movements of Belgium’s nuclear boss was seized during an anti-terrorist raid in the apartment of another suspect belonging to the same terror cell, Mohammed Bakkali. Similar information, but without the names of Brussels suicide bombers was published in DH in February. Belgium is on high alert following the deadly Brussels attacks. On Tuesday, Brussels was rocked by twin blasts at the city’s Zaventem Airport and an explosion at the Maalbeek Metro station, just meters away from key EU buildings, less than an hour later. Shortly after the deadly Brussels attacks, personnel from Belgium’s two nuclear power stations in Doel and in Tihange were promptly evacuated. DH also reported that soldiers have been seen at both sites in recent weeks. Source![]() |
Posted: 25 Mar 2016 03:41 PM PDT ![]() A recent tweet from Germany’s Left Wing Party, Die Linke, shows its true colors. “Refugees are not the problem, the Germans are” the official Die Linke Twitter account tweeted. The tweeted this to an account called Firoze Manji, who claims to be a director of group which “promotes diversity“. Yes it’s true – in their little spoiled brat world, Germans are the problem. But in the real world, native Germans have lived there for thousands of years, and built a first world country with their blood, sweat, and tears. It’s only since the late 20th century that various governments have decided it would be a good idea to get rid of the German majority. This agenda has a name and its called genocide. They want to annihilate Germans, but don’t just take our word. Former Foreign Minister and Vice Chancellor of Germany, Joschka Fischer, wrote in his book that: “Germany is to be contained from outside and heterogenized from the inside by influx, ‘diluted’ so to speak.” That is a very blatant call for genocide. We need all good men and women to expose this evil agenda to the public, anyway they can – it’s the only way we can stop it. ![]() |
Posted: 25 Mar 2016 03:21 PM PDT ![]() As the nation says “Goodbye” to Nancy Reagan – a woman widely admired as the quintessential political wife – we pause to ask: Who is Heidi Nelson Cruz? Watching any Ted Cruz political advertisement featuring his wife and two young daughters, we could easily get the impression that Heidi Nelson Cruz, like Nancy Reagan, is a devoted wife dedicated to making sure she and her husband occupy the White House. The New York Times in an article published on Jan. 18, described Heidi Cruz as “a political wife,” who had become a force in her husband’s presidential contest, “an all-purpose surrogate and strategist to be deployed as often as possible.” Heidi is herself a high-powered Bush insider, who served as deputy to National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice before signing on as a Deputy to U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, neocon stalwart and former Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations. Zoellick wired a cushy job for Heidi when she landed at Goldman Sachs as a partner. Goldman would, of course, go on to make a secret $1 million loan to fund Ted’s U.S. Senate campaign while both Cruzes lied about the source of funds being Heidi’s retirement savings. Source![]() |
Posted: 25 Mar 2016 03:04 PM PDT ![]() In a speech at The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in 2013, Donald Trump criticized America’s decades-long policy of restricting immigration from Europe, in favor of non-Western countries. “I say to myself ‘why aren’t we letting people in from Europe?’” Trump said. “I have many friends, many, many friends – and nobody wants to talk [about] this, nobody wants to say it – but I have many, many friends from Europe. They wanna come in.” “People I know, tremendous people, hardworking people. They can’t come in.” “I know people who’s sons went to Harvard – top in their class, went to the Wharton school of finance – great, great students.” “We educate them, we make them really good, they go home [because] they can’t stay here, so they work from their country, and . . . they work very effectively against us. Now how stupid is that?” Since 1965, America’s immigration policy has been to restrict immigrants from majority White countries, and to let non-White immigrants in their place. ![]() |
Posted: 25 Mar 2016 03:01 PM PDT ![]() GOP frontrunner warns of Trojan horse invasion. A YouTube video depicting a stark warning from presidential candidate Donald Trump regarding the refugee crisis is continuing to go viral across the web. Reciting lyrics from the 1968 song “The Snake” by Al Wilson, based off Aesop’s fable of The Farmer and the Viper, the business mogul explains how Europe is being slowly overtaken by radical jihadists. Source![]() |
Posted: 25 Mar 2016 02:55 PM PDT ![]() The Pope’s ritual where he washes and kisses the feet of twelve men, took place at a center for asylum seekers just outside Rome, confirms the Vatican. There, he washed and kissed the feet of twelve young Muslim asylum seekers to show the international community the importance of providing refugees shelter, said an official in the Vatican. – It was simple, but expressive, says Archbishop Rino Fisichella on a visit to Castelnuovo di Porto, located 30 kilometers north of Rome. The ritual Thursday commemorates how Jesus humbly washed the disciples’ feet the night before he died. Previous Popes have washed the feet of the cardinals at the Vatican, but Francis has broken with this tradition since he was elected in 2013. He has held the ritual in a center for young criminals, in a nursing home for the elderly, and in a prison. Pope Francis has repeatedly asked Europe to open its doors to refugees, and at the Palm Sunday Mass, he asked the world not to turn its back on people in need. Easter is the year’s liturgical highlight of the Catholic Church, and the week is busy for Pope. As head of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics, he will attend all Easter ceremonies, writes Rome Reports. Source |
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