The Hot Zone with Chuck Holton

Episode 160 - Religious Persecution: 5 Places You Don't Want to Live as a Christian

An enlightening report on the state of religious persecution and the five places you don't want to live if you are a Christian.  All that coming up on today's Hot Zone.

 

Hi folks!  As you watch this I'm enroute to Africa and will try to report next week while I'm in Nigeria.  If for some reason I can't get a podcast out while I'm there, I've got some great backup content loaded up for you, so don't despair.  It would really mean a lot to me if you'd share this podcast with your friends, and put some skin in the game by subscribing over at Patreon.com/hotzone.  I mean, people subscribe to magazines, newspapers, and so why not subscribe to this podcast?  

 

Okay, Let's talk persecution:  An independent report into the persecution of Christians commissioned by the British government says persecution is on the rise and that Christians are the group most persecuted for their religion in the world.

 

The report's publication in London was marked in Rome on Monday by a meeting organised by the British Embassy to the Holy See in the Basilica of St. Bartholomew, which is devoted to modern-day Christian martyrs.

 

Details of the report, written by the Bishop of Truro the Right Reverend Philip Mounstephen, were summarised by Sally Axworthy, British Ambassador to the Holy See.

 

She said the report, commissioned by British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, looked at the plight of persecuted Christians around the world, concluding that a variety of factors were behind anti-Christian oppression, including aggressive nationalism and a rise of Islamist extremism.

 

The report also assesses the quality of the British Foreign Office's response to such persecution, which, according to the report, affects 245 million people, and looks at how the international community can support persecuted Christians.

 

The report recommends that Britain push for a UN Security Council resolution urging governments in the Middle East and North Africa to protect Christians and other persecuted minorities.  Let's listen to some of that meeting.

 

 

Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, Archbishop of Colombo, Sri Lanka, spoke at the vatican last week about the victims of the 2019 Easter Sri Lankan bombings during a presentation of a Catholic aid organisation’s report on worldwide persecutions of Christians.

 

The Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) organisation highlighted the support it provided to the Indian Ocean nation, among other countries, following the suicide bomb attacks on three churches and three tourist hotels that killed at least 250 people and injured about 500 others.

 

At one point during the news conference the Archbishop paused and fought back tears after recounting a story about a father who lost his wife and three children in the attacks.  

 

Speaking Italian, he said, “For example there is a husband who lost his wife and three children. When I went to visit him he told me that before when he would come home from work, three children ran to him, and now there is no one. Only an empty house."  And that's when the Archbishop sort of lost it.  Who can blame him?  

 

Okay, now I want to play for you my list of the top five places you don't want to live if you are a Christian.

 

That's it for today folks.  Thanks for watching.  I hope you have a great weekend.  See you back on Monday right here on the Hot Zone.

 

 

Episode 159 - Ebola Spread and Puerto Rico Erupts

The Ebola Virus is making an appearance in another country now - the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  That's not good.  And Corruption rears it's ugly head in Puerto Rico.  Again.  All that coming up on today's hot zone.

 

Hi folks!  Thanks for all the great feedback on yesterday's episode.  I'm off tomorrow on my biggest trip yet this year.  Four Continents, Seven Countries and 56,000 air miles over the next three weeks.  I'll be in Nigeria, reporting on Boko Haram and ISIS, then off to South Africa where I'll be reporting on crime and the murder of white farmers, and then to Afghanistan where I'll get to visit my son Mason and embed with his medevac unit for a few days.  I'm really looking forward to that.  

 

Over the next few days I'm going to be airing some original content and some re-run content from earlier this year.  All of it is really good stuff, and I'll be filling in with whatever I can manage to produce while I'm on the road.  

 

Okay, before I get to the big stories for today I want to just comment on a shooting that took place in the northern Iraqi city of Erbil yesterday.  A turkish diplomat was gunned down inside a popular restaurant in a highly secure area of the city.  In fact, I believe the offices of our security team when I was there with Oliver North a couple years ago are located in the same building as this restaurant.  

 

It's got the whole city of Erbil in an uproar because this sort of thing normally does not happen in kurdistan.  Erbil is so safe I'd gladly take my family there on vacation.  Here's a little video I shot while I was there in February:

 

Anyway, there have been a lot of tensions between the kurds and the turks as of late, as they have both laid claim to the syrian region known as Rojava, and this won't make things any better.  The Iranians bombed the kurds near their border over the past few days, and I'm sure that involved some of the troops I interviewed when I was there earlier this year.

 

Meanwhile the bombing by Assads forces and the Russians continues in Idlib, in northern syria.  and that's causing lots more civilian casualties.  The kurds who make up the syrian democratic forces already have their hands full with tens of thousands of former isis wives in several camps, and those places are really starting to get out of control.   A couple days ago someone raised an ISIS flag over the Al Hol camp, and the video shows lots of kids dancing around the flagpole and shouting Allah Akhbar.  So ISIS as an idea is obviously alive and well in many places around the world, even Syria.  So that's wonderful.  It's a really difficult question of what to do with these ISIS kids - I mean, how do you deprogram them when their mothers are still true believers?  Glad that's not my job.  I'd say send a bunch of Christian missionaries in there and do your best to convert them.  Because if you don't change their hearts, you are going to have a real challenge changing their minds.  

 

Okay, on to Puerto Rico, where protests are happening after evidence of massive corruption has come to light inside the government.  A lot of it has to do with the billions of dollars in aid money that was pumped into Puerto rico after the 2107 hurricane that all but wiped the island protectorate off the map.  So far hundreds of thousands of people have moved to the US mainland, and that will have a profound effect on the 2020 election - mark my words.  But it turns out the leaders on the island were directing much of that aid money - not to where it was needed most, but to their cronies.  Same song, different verse.  Puerto rico has always been known for it's massive corruption, and I found that out when I was there covering the aftermath of hurricane Maria.

 

[hurricane maria]

 

Protesters are now calling for the governor of Puerto Rico to step down, and that will probably happen considering the dirt they have on him.  Let's hope they don't replace him with the mayor of San Juan, who is an outright socialist.  

 

Okay, on to Congo.  Bad news came in over the past few days that a Congolese pastor  in the eastern city of Goma contracted Ebola, and it has many locals there worried. IN the town of Beni, Congo, aid workers were giving out the ebola vaccine, which was developed in part by Doctor Ellen Jo Barron, who we've had on the podcast a couple of times.  People in Congo often respond violently to the efforts to administer the vaccine though, since the primitive thinking goes that medics are actually infecting people with the virus.  So a real challenge for those combatting this on the front lines.  

 

If you haven't seen it, let me recommend a powerful documentary about the ebola epidemic filmed by my friend David Darg.  Darg is one of my heroes and was nominated for an oscar for his coverage of Ebola back in 2014.

 

I visited Goma years ago and here's what they were dealing with back then.

 

[goma package]

 

World health officials are saying this is a game changer, as Goma is a regional hub for travelers from all over Africa.  Which considering the primitive state of the place when I was there, is kind of hard to believe.  

 

[officials]

 

I'm going to keep following this story and especially as I spend the next week or so in Africa.  Ebola is no joke, and Africa is the perfect storm of humanity that it could infect and possibly kill millions.  This makes I think four countries now where it's killed people, just in this most recent outbreak.  With all the people fleeing violence in that part of Africa, it could easily hitch a ride to the western hemisphere with one of these migrants.  

 

So that's all I have for today folks. Thanks for watching.  Keep checking my facebook page for updates and photos from my upcoming trip.

 

Episode 158 - Migrants Mad Everywhere and New Zealand Gun Buyback

Taking guns away in New Zealand, will it really make people safer?  Ebola spreads in The Democratic Republic of Congo and Migrants are angry everywhere.   Coming up on the Hot Zone.

 

Italian police have evicted migrants and others from an abandoned former school on Rome's outskirts in the latest operation to empty occupied buildings of squatters.

 

Residents set fire early Monday to mattresses and other garbage to form a barrier and prevent riot police from entering the building. But authorities doused the blaze and proceeded with the eviction.

 

Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, who has championed a crackdown on migrants, said Italy had "no tolerance" for anyone who illegally occupies abandoned buildings. He said the structure was dangerous and put women and children living there at risk.

 

City hall officials said they were providing alternative housing for the nearly 200 people affected.

 

In Paris illegal African migrants are demanding the same rights as French citizens and recently occupied the Pantheon.  Police in Paris have removed scores of people who invaded the famed monument where many famous French figures are buried, in order to press their demands for residence papers.

 

Police moved into the monument hours after Friday's occupation began and evacuated the occupiers who are illegally living in France and demanding a meeting with Prime Minister Edouard Philippe.

 

Some members of the group identified themselves on Facebook as "Black Vests", and members of a group called the La Chapelle Debout, a reference to the sector in northern Paris teaming with migrants without shelters and homeless.  And of course, when they were denied, they set up the all too familiar cry of "racist."  

 

Both at home and around the world, we're seeing that word used against anyone who stands for the rule of law.  Paris doesn't care what race these lawbreakers are - they only have a problem with the fact that these men are breaking the law.  When did it become racist to expect people to be law abiding?  I don't know.  But it's the same here in the states.

 

President Trump is getting lots of flack for his decidedly unpresidential twitter habit.  Not wholly undeserved, mind you - in my opinion the best thing he could do for his 2020 chances would be to give up his twitter account.  Nevertheless, he's being pilloried by the left for a new rule that will require migrants to claim asylum in the first country they enter after leaving their own, though I'm sure some 9th circuit court judge will strike that down soon and call it, too, racist. 

New Zealand just completed it's first gun buyback since the horrific mosque shootings back in march which left 51 dead and another 49 wounded.  Now New Zealand is not a hot zone - on the contrary it's normally one of the safest places on earth.  But I hope you'll indulge me as I point how how what's happened there since the shooting won't make that country - or any other - any safer than it was before.  If anything, it's probably more dangerous.

New laws went into place there recently restricting the kind of weapons used in the mosque shooting.  The government set aside millions of dollars to buy back these weapons, and if my arithmetic is right, they are paying over $1500 per gun for the few firearms being turned in.

Now you need to understand something about New Zealand - they have a very, very homogenous society.  So pretty much everyone has very similar morals, values and worldview.  So if they decide to make changes to their country's laws, it's a pretty straightforward process.  Also, the country is so safe that the idea of firearms for self defense is pretty unheard of.  Still, a gun buyback is probably the least effective way of making the country's citizens safer...I mean really... who can imagine criminals turning in their weapons?  Normally the people who turn in guns are those who inherited them or who could use the cash...sometimes to buy better guns.  Listen to some of those who were involved in the buyback.

[Interviews]

It's clear listening to these guys that New Zealanders have a different mindset when it comes to firearms than most gun owners in the United States.  Liberals here like former presidential hopeful Eric Swalwell have been advocating for massive compulsory buybacks here...and the results have been so underwhelming as to be downright ridiculous.

Liberals aren’t just attacking the second amendment.  They want to fundamentally transform the very culture that has made America exceptional for most of our history.

Excuse me while I rant a little...The deep hatred progressives have for American values continues to rear it’s ugly head in so many places.  The left has become more and more unhinged as they continue to fulminate under the Trump administration.  Everything Trump says or does is one more log on the fire of their hatred.  I’ve often said that America is really two countries with vastly different values trying to inhabit the same space, and you only have to look at the news on any given day to get a sense of just  how mutually exclusive these two groups of people can be.  If you feel like everything you’ve ever known to be good, honorable and just is now being called terrorist, deplorable and corrupt, you are not alone.  

I spend a lot of time overseas.  I see first hand what it’s like for people living in countries like Germany and Austria where you are literally prohibited from defending yourself.  You are basically expected to simply lay down and die if there don’t happen to be any police around when a criminal decides to attack.  

I’ve been to Sweden, where you can be arrested for having an opinion the government deems to be "unkind". 

I’ve been to Honduras, where if you are robbed the last place you go is to the police, unless of course you want to be robbed again.

And I’ve been to Somalia, home of a certain congresswoman who loves to hate on America, where the only law is that of whichever warlord can bring the most terror and suffering on the people.  Believe me, that’s not a place you want to live.  Somalia is one of the worst places on the planet.  

[somalia package]

Somalia is looking to hold it's first real elections in fifty years in 2020, and that's a big deal, because it's been a failed state for nearly all of living memory.  I was there when they re-wrote their constitution, and was pleasantly surprised to see that they were committed to enshrining the right of their people to defend themselves.  But when you see how lawless that country truly is, you can understand why when people come from places like that to, say, Italy, they're likely to attack and destroy when they don't get their way. 

 The rule of law is one of the most important factors in a stable civilization, however, and you have only to spend a day in Mogadishu to get a real appreciation for that.  So this is what I don't understand about Ilhan Omar.  She seems to be vehemently against just about any American authority.  Whether it's the border patrol or the pentagon.  Here she is attacking the DOD for dropping bombs on terrorists.

[ilhan omar]

Here, the police  and the military are held to a very high standard of integrity, and while justice might not be perfect, it’s SO much better than the rest of the world that most Americans can’t even imagine the kind of corruption that is common elsewhere.  So where is the benefit to our country for representatives who grandstand like this?

One of the signs of this enormous divide in American culture is how literally everything becomes politicized.  This has created a socially toxic environment where people can’t even stand to be in the same room with someone who holds different views than they do.  Where employers feel pressured to take a political stand on every issue, from abortion to guns to same sex marriage.  This is not what a healthy culture looks like.

 In a saner and more civil time, back when I was a child, people tried to get along with others out of a common sense of simply being American.  They used to say, “hey, it’s a free country.” And let people believe what they wanted.  But then the left decided that America didn’t have problems, America WAS the problem. This depraved worldview made them become the very things they accused America of being.  They accuse America of racism while forming racially exclusive hate groups.  They accuse  America of fascism while using fascist tactics to violently oppose anyone with whom they disagree.  And they accuse you and I, people on the "other side", of literally murdering children.  One thing is for sure, the left’s hate-filled worldview has no room for one thing:  Irony.

 

Okay, stepping down off my soapbox now.  I try not to indulge my opinion too terribly often on the podcast, but the events of the last few months, and the absolutely vile rhetoric being served up by both sides of the aisle makes me think maybe we need to step back a bit and just reflect on how truly exceptional are these United States of America.

That's all for today folks.  Thanks for being here.  I know I always ask you to like and share the podcast - but really, please like and share it, because you doing so could just make the difference in this thing really taking off.  All right.  I'll see you back here tomorrow on the Hot Zone.

Episode 157 - What's Happening in Hong Kong with Michael Yon

World-renowned war correspondent Michael Yon joins us to discuss what's happening in Hong Kong. 

Episode 156 - Something Strange About the Manhattan Blackout

Today we'll discuss a strange fact about the power outage in Manhattan and take a look at the vulnerability of the US Power Grid.

Episode 155 - Patriotism, Ebola and The Fine Line Between Hooah and Stupid

Learning about Patriotism from an unlikely place, the fine line between Hooah and Stupid.  That’s coming up on today’s edition of the Hot Zone.

 

Hi folks.  I’m sure you are looking forward to the weekend, but I can promise you not nearly as much as I am.  It’s been a challenging couple of weeks for me to say the least.  My mom’s cancer diagnosis was a real shock, and dealing with that, well, I hope you never have too do it, let’s just put it that way.  I really appreciate your prayers though.  Prayer is more than just “sending good thoughts” at somebody.  Prayer really tangibly changes things.  I say that because I’ve seen it myself so many times throughout my life.  It’s also a huge help to know I can go talk to the Creator of the Universe anytime I want, and more importantly, I can trust that He’s in control and is working out His plan.  My mom taught me that.

 

You know, we’re not guaranteed another day on this planet, so if we woke up this morning, there’s probably something important we’re supposed to be doing.  If you follow me on the podcast or on social media, you know I spend a lot of time in dangerous places around the world.  And I don’t take that risk lightly.  But it’s what I was made to do, and it’s intensely interesting and meaningful work.  So for me it’s worth it.  

 

Which is why I’m not really into all the extreme sports.  I mean, I like adrenaline as much as the next guy, but when it comes down to it, throwing yourself off a bridge or setting a land speed record doesn’t really bring any meaning to your life.  I guess I’m a purpose junkie more than an adrenaline junkie.  But in the pursuit of purpose, I get all the adrenaline I need.

 

So I’m kind of skeptical of this one particular extreme activity: The Running of the Bulls that happens every year in Pamplona Spain.  Now I can appreciate the history of the sport, if you can call running away from angry beef a sport, but I can’t see much point in it.  Every year hundreds of thrill seeking dudes dress up and see how close they can come to getting killed by stampeding cattle.  I just….yeah…Okay.  Everyone else comes out to watch.  But you know we’re only watching out of sheer morbid curiosity, waiting for the next unfortunate runner to get gored or trampled.  It’s like watching car racing just for the crashes.  

 

Well this year one American disregarded the advice of his friends and family and went and participated anyway.  And everything was going great until, well, listen.

 

[gored by a bull]

 

So…yeah.  Let that be a lesson to you boys and girls.  The world is a dangerous place all by itself.  You should think hard about how to make it more meaningful, and be brave in so doing.  But if you decide to run with the bulls, you’d better know how to moooove.  And that’s what my kids would call a “dad joke.”

 

Okay, let’s move on to West Africa.  The number of Ebola cases is now north of 2,000, with over 1400 deaths.  If you’ve followed the podcast for awhile, you’ve heard some of the world’s top experts on Ebola explain this horrible disease which kills nearly 90% of those who are infected.  It could easily get loose and end up killing millions, even tens of millions of people.  That’s why it’s so frustrating that the aid workers and doctors who are trying to contain the outbreak keep getting attacked by suspicious villagers and criminal militias.  Make no mistake, folks.  Ebola is one of the greatest POTENTIAL threats the world is facing right now.  Here’s an aid worker who has been in the fight against it since the big outbreak in 2014.

 

[aid worker]

 

Today’s outbreak is spreading, with the first confirmed cases now in Uganda causing local authorities and medical personnel there to step up their efforts to check people coming across the border.

 

[lady at border]

 

USAID director Mark Green recently spoke about this and pointed out the sort of trifecta of threat they are seeing in West Africa that’s made many other African countries start refusing entry to any travelers coming from the affected area.

 

Now the scary thing is if you go back to what we talked about on yesterday’s podcast - the numbers of africans leaving their countries and making the trek to Europe and the United States, and those who are coming are getting increasingly desperate.  Recently there were protests and riots on the Libyan coast in migrant shelters because the Africans are saying conditions are terrible and they aren’t being allowed to get on boats fast enough.  And that goes back to the increasing hostility to irregular migration we’re seeing across Europe.  But if Ebola manages to hitch a ride north with one of these migrants, the state of the camps would almost guarantee a massive outbreak.  Add to that the fact that hundreds are flying to Ecuador every day and within weeks could be arriving at the US southern border….well it almost seems a miracle that Ebola hasn’t spread around the world already.

 

So. That’s exciting.  Nothing like some possible global apocalypse to get you in the mood for the weekend.  So let’s lighten things up a little bit.  This is one of the coolest things I’ve watched lately.  IT’s 35,000 people coming together in the Eastern European country of Estonia to sing patriotic songs about their homeland.  

 

They interviewed some of the people who participated to find out what it’s all about, and I have to say their English is incredibly good.

 

Well, I don’t know about you, but I really like their take on patriotism and freedom.  So have a good weekend everyone.  We’ll see you back next week on the hot zone.

 

 

 

 

 

Episode 154 - Stopping the Flow: Migration in the Mediterranean

Migrant Troubles in the Mediterranean and More!  Coming up on Today's Hot Zone.

 

Hi Folks, welcome to today's edition of the Hot Zone Podcast.  I'm your host, Chuck Holton, and my job is to bring to your attention areas around the world suffering from war, crisis and disaster, and especially those you aren't hearing much about in the mainstream media.  There is so much happening in this world that even a 24-hour news cycle is too short to explain it all, and I feel like the news we get spends way too much time focusing on the things that divide us...I'm already tired of hearing about the 2020 presidential campaign, and all the mudslinging and spin that goes with it.  Meanwhile there are hurting people all over the world.  But the idea here isn't just to tell you all the depressing things happening around the world, it's to give you a chance to actually make the news better, little by little, by meeting some of the people who are being affected and then using the power of social media and other modern technology to join me in helping the people God puts in front of us.  You can be a part of it, by simply going to Patreon.com/hotzone and subscribing, or by sending a contribution via paypal.  And on that topic, I may have an announcement to make very soon that we are partnering with another aid organization in a way that might make your contributions tax deductible.  So stay tuned.

 

Okay, As summer weather warms the Mediterranean, the number of boats bearing migrants that are caught in distress has spiked, according to groups involved in running search and rescue operations there. Advocates for the migrants say that European policies aimed at limiting the number of migrants reaching their shores are in fact making the route more deadly.  And they may be right.  But today I want to talk a little more about why that might not be such a bad thing.

 

Even though it looks like there will be fewer than 100,000 migrants coming into Europe this year, more migrants than usual have been leaving Libya for southern Europe in small crafts in the last month and falling into danger along the way.  

 

Now it's no secret that the quality of life in Europe, just like the quality of life in America, is much higher than it is in what they call the global south.  Many countries in Africa and the middle east, for example, are beset by wars and poverty.  According to the UN High Commission for Refugees, in 2014 the number of people migrating across the mediterranean totaled almost a quarter million people.  Then in 2015 it spiked to over a million.  The numbers have fallen every year since, and part of the reason for that is the hard line much of Europe has taken on irregular migration.  In other words, making it harder to get there has had an effect.  

 

Italy's hard-line interior minister  Matteo Salvini just closed a migrant center in Sicily he said was the largest in Europe.

During a news conference, he underlined the decrease in migrant arrivals since his populist government took office a year ago.

Salvini told reporters that the number of migrants in centers across Italy has gone down from 182,000 a year ago to 107,000 today. Asylum requests had halved to about 30,000, he said.

The migrant center in Mineo has been slated to close for years after it was found there were large amounts of illegal activities inside including an alleged Nigerian drug trafficking ring. It was also part of a huge bribery and kickback scandal involving migrant housing.  the camp at one point held as many as 4,000 migrants.

Salvini said that its closure would free up hundreds of thousands of euros a day in public money as well as law enforcement resources. Interior Ministry figures show that 3,073 migrants arrived in Italy so far this year, many from Tunisia and Pakistan.  That compared with 17,000 in the same period last year and 85,000 a year earlier.  So it's pretty clear the hardliners are having an effect. 

 

Italy's cabinet has passed an emergency decree targeting migrant rescue boats because it says the rescue ships, which belong to several aid groups, are engaged in human trafficking.  And I see their point.  Undoubtedly many of those who set off from Libya across the Mediterranean know that if anything goes wrong there's a good chance one of these aid groups will pick them up.  That means more are setting out on the dangerous journey than would otherwise.  According to the UN more than 17,000 people have died on that crossing since 2014, and almost 700 of those this year.  

Salvini has refused to allow humanitarian rescue ships into Italian ports, resulting in dozens of stand-offs since the populist government took office in June 2018.  But some migrant boats continue to arrive in Italy on their own, and are dubbed "ghost arrivals" by the media.

Salvini insisted that every arrival was counted.

"They can be big, medium or small, NGO, children, wooden boats, sailboats, paddle boats. The interior ministry counts them all. There is no such thing as 'ghost ships,'" Salvini said.

On the 12th of June a ship called the Sea Watch 3 tried docking on the Italian island of Lampedusa with 42 migrants on board, and it was refused.  The captain, a 31-year-old German named Carola Rackete, was instructed to return the migrants to Italy, but she refused.   The ship stayed in international waters for a couple of weeks, until the captain decided she'd had enough.

Rackete decided to guide the ship into port in the middle of the night on June 29th. In doing so, her ship trapped an Italian police patrol boat against the quay.   No women driver jokes here.  Salvini called the move "an act of war", and accused Rackete of intentionally ramming the police boat, of being a pirate, outlaw, and a "rich, white, German woman".  That last part, at the very least, is true, though I'm not sure what it has to do with the situation.

 

Anyway, the young captain was arrested and threatened with up to ten years in jail.  But last week an Italian judge sided with Racete, and said as a captain she had a duty to preserve the lives of the people on board her ship.  Salvini was spitting mad about it, and claimed the incident was an attack on Italian sovereignty.  Which might be a little parabolic, but in reality, Salvini is facing the same problems we are seeing on the US southern border and like those we've seen in Panama and even Colombia with their Venezuelan migrants:  Anything one does to make irregular migration easier, safer, quicker or more comfortable has one inevitable result:  More migrant at your door.  The quandary all these governments share is how to avoid this, while still affording those who do arrive at your borders with basic human dignity.  I mean, if people are on a sinking ship, that's not the time or place to be deciding the political ramifications of saving them.  And the migrants know this.

 

One strategy that does appear to be having some success is that program being employed by the Trump administration called "remain in Mexico."  This is where asylum seekers are made to remain in Mexico until their asylum case is decided.  

 

Lucía Ascencio, a refugee from Venezuela had waited for three months in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico with her husband and two young sons just for the chance to make her asylum petition in Laredo, Texas. Once she made her claim she was stunned when she was told to return to Mexico.   

As they walked back into Mexico, she said: they hadn't thought that they were going to get sent back Her family was given a date in September to return for the next step in their process.  More than 18,000 mostly Central American migrants had been returned to those border cities through the first week in July, according to Mexican officials.

 

So this is what happens, and I'd say it's part of what is motivating Mexico to stop facilitating these hundreds of thousands of migrants transiting their country.  the Trump administration has done everything possible to make it costly for Mexico, and this is one way that is working.  

 

This guy's name is Aaron Mendez, and he works in a migrant shelter on the Mexican side of the border.  He told the Associated Press that if they had fifty shelters in Nuevo Laredo, it wouldn't be enough because there are hundreds of migrants showing up every day.  And he wonders how long they will end up staying.

 

After a Salvadoran Migrant and his daughter died trying to cross the Rio Grande river a couple of weeks ago, the Bishop of El Paso, Mark Seitz decided to stage a protest march across the bridge to Mexico to register his displeasure with the current process.  Here's what he had to say:

 

"But to know that it's happening right here on our border where we live, that people are regularly dying because of the way that they've been forced to take more and more dangerous paths to cross, to know that children and babies are being put in situations that make them ill, that threaten their very life, to know that people and young families who are seeking nothing but a safe place where they can live and work, that certainly is a source of moral outrage and a clear contradiction to the gospel."

 

So he's clearly upset about the situation as it is.  But if you break down what he's saying there, look where he's placing the blame - clearly he thinks the fact that migrants are dying is the fault of the US government not simply throwing open the gates and letting people in.  But these migrants, if they were truly fleeing violence and persecution, as some of them surely are, can make their case already and go through the asylum process.  The United States of America grants more asylum claims than any other country in the world.  The reason they are dying isn't that our asylum system is broken.  The reason they are dying is that they don't want to use the system.  And why don't they want to use it?  because in many cases, they simply aren't coming for asylum.  They are coming for a better job.  

 

In the case that sparked this Bishop's protest, Oscar Alberto Martinez Ramirez, the 25-year-old Salvadoran migrant who left El Salvador with his wife Tania and their one-year-old daughter, both Oscar and Tania had jobs back in their home country.  They didn't make a lot, but they made a living wage.  They weren't coming to the US because they were being persecuted.  They did not qualify for asylum.  They had received a work permit in Mexico, where they could have likely made more than in El Salvador.  But they wanted more.  

 

Well nobody can blame them for wanting more.  But when Oscar Ramirez decided to force the issue rather than go through the proper channels to enter the US, and put his one-year-old daughter in the Rio Grande to cross illegally, then what happened after that is nobody's fault but his own.  It's a tragedy, yes.  But it's a tragedy he chose.

 

The bishop of El Paso entered Mexico and then crossed back into the United States with some migrants in tow, trying to help them to the front of the line.  In so doing, he helped exacerbate an already overstressed system, and while he might get points in the media for his actions, they really amounted to nothing more than virtue signaling.  

 

He called the current system a "clear contradiction of the gospel."  I'm not sure what part of the system he's referring to: surely not the part where thousands of border patrol agents put their lives on the line every day to rescue people like Oscar Ramirez who are crossing the border illegally at stupid places in stupid ways.  He can't be referring to the BORTAC agents who have rescued several thousand migrants from the desert this year alone.  And I can't see where it's a contradiction of the gospel for us to be feeding, providing shelter and medical care for hundreds of thousands who have crossed into our country illegally.  I'd like to think he was referring to the profane amount of money - tens of billions being spent in these efforts that has to be essentially stolen from American taxpayers every year.  Because taking money from one group of people without their consent and giving it to another group of people isn't charity, it's theft.  But I get the feeling that's not what the good Bishop was talking about.

 

I hate that this has to be such a politically charged issue.  America is supposed to be the land of opportunity, and opportunity gives people the ability to be charitable.  We're still the most charitable nation on the planet, bar none.  But it's too easy for politicians to pretend that they are being magnanimous about helping the global poor when they aren't using their own money.  So just remember this:  All charity must be personal.  We can work together to help others, and that's one reason I started this podcast;  to leverage the magic of modern technology to make it easier for you to be personally involved in the lives of the neediest people on earth.  So thanks for being a part of it.  I am leaving in a few days for a long, whirlwind trip across the globe.  I'll be flying more than 55,000 air miles over three weeks, heading to Nigeria, South Africa and Afghanistan, Lord willing.  So I'd appreciate your prayers for all those moving parts, and for my sweet mom, who is just beginning her chemotherapy in an attempt to prolong her life a bit.  

 

I really appreciate you all.  I'll see you back here tomorrow, on the Hot Zone.

 

End Notes;

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48795257

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48853050

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7183475/Tragic-story-El-Salvador-father-daughter-drowned-crossing-Rio-Grande.html

https://data2.unhcr.org/en/situations/mediterranean

 

 

Episode 153 - How Migration Affects Murders in Mexico

Another record year for murders in Mexico, and what the migrant crisis has to do with that.  All coming up on today's hot zone.

 

Hi folks.  Welcome to the hot zone.  Together, we are making this podcast better and better at giving you the news and commentary that really matters.  See we could probably get more views if we were  to obsess for days about celebrity breakups or highly-politicized inside the beltway shenanigans.  But There are millions of real people out there around the world who could care less about Kanye or Pelosi because their lives are being turned upside down as we speak.  And I don't just want to bring you THOSE stories, I want to give you a way to reach into their lives and help them directly.  It's a new kind of news gathering that really hasn't been tried, and you get to be a part of it.  Just go to Patreon.com/hotzone and subscribe for as little as three bucks a month and soon (as in within a couple of weeks) I'll be off on my next big trip of the year to Nigeria, South Africa and Afghanistan, where I'll be busy not only getting the ground truth about what's going on in those places, I'll also be finding some people you can help.  So as I like to say, we don't just make the news, we make the news better. 

 

Well there's lots of bad news out of Mexico, where they saw a record number of murders in the first six months of this year, with an average 94 killings each day, or more than 17,000 people already this year.  June saw the most murders of any month on record, with more than 3,000 people killed.

 

This epidemic of violence has been going on for a long time.  I went and lived in northern Sonora state for one winter back in 2012 to report on the wave of killings that at that time was a record. 

 

[package]

 

That was 2012. But these days, if the mexican president were to get murder rates back to the same level they were back then, it'd be hailed as a big achievement.  

Mexico's Guerrero state is one place where The battle for control of opium-producing areas  has already cost thousands of lives, and the violence just seems to keep getting worse.  Many people thought that the increase in use of fentanyl would depress the opium market and the violence would calm down, but that hasn't happened.

It now appears a new round of violence is only beginning, pitting warring gangs against vigilante squads, fighting over just about everything, including fuel theft, gold mines and routes for precursor chemicals.

In May, new and more violent players burst onto the scene: a car bomb exploded, a drug cartel moved into the outskirts of the state capital, and heavily-armed units of trained killers began fighting vigilantes who moved into the outer neighborhoods of Acapulco.

Thousands have been displaced by the fighting, which you aren't hearing much about in the mainstream media.  But more frighteningly, the toxic mix of drug cartels, hired killers, vigilante police forces and often all three together have essentially neutralized the Mexican military, forcing army troops into the role of mere spectators, or even worse, hostages.

It wasn't supposed to be this way: in the first four months of 2019, homicides fell by 36% in Guerrero, an effect many attributed to a fall-off in disputes between gangs seeking to corner the trade in opium gum, which is bought from poppy growers in poor mountain villages.

But nationwide, murders rose 6.7% in the first four months of the year, and in Guerrero, there was an uptick in violence in May: in once incident eight members of a family were killed and their bodies dumped in the state capital.

In one town near Acapulco, killers sliced up the body of a fallen member of a rival vigilante "community police" group, joking they were going to eat him.

Townspeople confirmed the butchery occurred two weeks ago, when the vigilante group calling itself the United Front of Guerrero Community Police took over the town and ran rival vigilantes out, killing two and carving up the body of one man with bayonet-like knives after he was already dead.

Despite that,  just a few hundred yards away from the vigilantes' base, a detachment of state police and Mexican marines guard the highway and patrol the town, but have made no attempt to arrest the vigilantes even though almost all are openly carrying illegal assault rifles.

Don't forget, almost all weapons are banned in Mexico, even though they have something akin to the 2nd amendment in their constitution.  But the government has just sort of legislated away the right of the people to self defense, along with many other rights, to the point where one mexican man told me "everything is illegal in Mexico, it's just what they choose to enforce."  

 

Daniel Adame is the leader of the group that took over this pueblo near Acapulco by detonating a car-bomb loaded with gas cylinders.  Nothing like a car bomb to say "we're here to bring peace and stability, huh?

Adame is a far call from the vigilante leaders of five years ago; a self-described businessman, he owns a lion and exotic birds, has an expensive and very illegal AR-15 and his son carries a pistol with carved silver handgrips.

He defends the use of the car-bomb, saying other vigilante groups use explosives, so why not?

It something being seen more and more across Mexico: so-called "community police" or "self-defense" groups proliferating and becoming increasingly cartel-like in their tactics.  They are so fed up with the inability or unwillingness of the police to bring security to their towns, that they take matters into their own hands.  And if you ask me, this is what a failed state looks like. 

And time after time, soldiers don't intervene, or are even held hostages, in part because they are afraid of opening fire on "civilians" organized into vigilante groups.

Part of the problem is that vigilante groups, like the one in La Huacana, are often sponsored, formed by or allied with drug cartels, or use similar tactics.

 

And that's what you are seeing here in Guerrero state.  Now don't get me wrong, this is not the norm everywhere in Mexico.  In fact, most of Mexico is actually safer than you might think.  It's really only a few hot zones where cartels want to control the production of opium or pot or whatever that things are this bad.   But that's small consolation to the people who live there.  

 

Salvador Alanis is a former migrant who now serves as strategist and spokesman for the FUP CEG, the group that took over this little town.

Alanis says the FUP CEG has as many as 9,000 men under arms, outnumbering the Mexican army in their state. Actually some of the members of this vigilante group are also members of the military.  So there's some overlap.  And the Mexican police forces and military are getting a huge overhaul by the new government.

Mexican President Manuel Lopez Obrador is betting his entire security strategy on the newly created National Guard, a sort of militarized police force that is expected to be deployed in Guerrero starting in about a month. But if the Guard faces the limits the Army faces, it will be essentially dead on arrival in states like Guerrero and Michoacan. And as the vigilantes grow harder to distinguish from cartels, some in Guerrero are de-facto wings of drug gangs, the cartels are growing bolder.  With no effective government presence in the area, soldiers have stood by as a string of towns were taken over, residents have practically had to erect moats, or put up roadblocks to defend their towns.  Driving the backroads of Guerrero these days means passing dozens of roadblocks manned by men with assault rifles.  And you never know if they are there for your safety, or to extort money from you, or worse.  Probably puts the kibosh on the tourist trade, I'd say.

And lots of residents are packing up and leaving.  Like many residents of the mountains, David Barragan, a resident of Los Moros who was forced from his village by the incursion of Alanis' FUPCEG forces, depended on planting an acre or two of poppies to bring in cash income.

But since prices dropped a couple of years ago, Barragan has turned to his stand of avocado trees, the new 'green gold' in the mountains of southern Mexico.

But now, the FUPCEG vigilantes have seized his avocado orchard and are harvesting the fruit he has waited for two years to mature.

Barragan, like hundreds of his neighbors, and thousands throughout the state, have voted with their feet, taking refuge in abandoned houses or sports stadiums in Guerrero, or fleeing to other states. Barragan has spent seven months living in exile, and he says people won't take it much longer.  But what are they going to do about it? 

The new National Guard created by Mexican President Manuel Lopez Obrador was intended to be used to secure areas like this and bring down the record homicide rates. But now instead it has been tasked with patrolling the border to placate President Donald Trump, who has demanded Mexico stem the flow of U.S.-bound Central Americans that pass through the country or risk tariffs on Mexican goods.  Obrador ran on a platform of being friendly to these migrants and helping them make the long journey across Mexico and enter the United States.  But the threat of tarrifs by the Trump administration put those plans in check, because Mexico depends heavily on cross-border commerce with the United States, and those tariffs could cause irreparable harm to the way business gets done in Mexico.  Meaning lots of companies who base some or all of their operations in Mexico to take advantage of the lower labor rates, could see that advantage disappear with the addition of tariffs and decide to move their operations back into the US.  If the deployment of some 21,000 National Guard troops at Mexico’s northern and southern borders can reduce the flow of migrants, Lopez Obrador will have successfully kept Trump’s tariffs at bay and averted opening up another front in the global trade war. 

Border Patrol Commissioner Kevin McAllennan was on Fox recently talking about the fact that this is actually a pretty big deal.

 

[mcAllennan package]

 

But using almost a third of the National Guard’s total ranks for migration duties means fewer security forces to tackle one of Mexico’s most pressing issues, spiraling violence, which last year cost a record 33,000 lives.  So Mexico finds itself in a real quandary.  Add to that the fact that many of the Mexican Federal police are walking off the job in protest because Obrador's plan is to fold many of them into the new National Guard, which apparently involves a pay cut and an entrance exam many of the Federal Police can't pass.  

So in the meantime, mexican citizens like these are taking up illegal arms and increasingly taking the law into their own hands.   We'll keep an eye on this to see how it plays out.

 

That's all I have for today folks.  If you are enjoying the podcast, please share it with your friends.  Don't forget you can watch the podcast for free over at Opslens.com.  I'll be back again tomorrow.  Thanks for watching the Hot Zone.

 

 

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/mexico-murder-rate-soars-to-average-94-per-day

https://nypost.com/2019/07/05/mexico-murder-rate-spirals-out-of-control-hitting-94-killings-a-day/

https://ijr.com/mexicos-new-national-guard-was-created-to-fight-crime-but-now-its-in-a-face-off-with-migrants/?utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=74409722&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8OX5CojUYez9KoBLt2QWZnB885XhVHUoCMXOZImCvXiLtxJ5hB7xRhtHCiPGzccQQTTwsDDKJGIrng2RYNREkuNR-bAg&_hsmi=74409722

 

Episode 152 - ISIS Terrorists Captured in Nicaragua?

Today's podcast features an interview with Todd Bensman, from the Center for Immigration Studies talking about the terror threat inherent in the mass migration taking place through Latin America.

Episode 151 - Church Threats, Earthquakes and ISIS Metastasizing

Churches get serious about security in light of recent threats, and ISIS fighters around the globe renew their commitment to murder and mayhem.  All that coming up on today's hot zone.

 

Hi folks.  It's another beautiful day out here in Reno Nevada, where I"ve been for the past week or so caring for my mom, who has pancreatic cancer.  I really appreciate all the prayers and messages of support.   Mom is comfortable and this week she'll start the treatment doctors are telling us could prolong her life by months or even years.  So keep praying!  

 

Well churches across the United States are getting serious about security as they realize that they are at risk from the next whackjob with a grudge who is looking for a soft target.  

 

Last week I saw news that some jewish synagogues in the US are doing actual active shooter drills during services to keep all their folks on their toes.  That might sound crazy, but we actually filmed this short dramatization at the end of one of our church services in Beckley West Virginia a few years ago.  

 

[hicks attack]

 

But that's west virginia.  Now this is happening in Philadelphia and other places.  And none too soon.  On June 19th a 21 year old Syrian refugee (living in Pittsburgh) was arrested for attempting to provide material support for terrorism to ISIS.  He was also attempting to radicalize others.   Mustafa Mousab Alowemer planned to attack a Pittsburgh church (according to court documents) with explosives in an attempt to inspire ISIS supporters in the US to conduct similar attacks.  This is not the first time this sort of aspiration was thwarted by the FBI.  He was following through with that plan when he distributed DIY plans to construct an improvised explosive device (IED).  Praise God that he was actually sending the plans to an undercover agent.   As late as June of 2019, he was distributing ISIS propaganda and offered to identify potential targets in the Pittsburgh area.  Demonstrating his intentions, he made a "martyrdom" video pledging support to the leader of ISIS (Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi) and requested a gun with a silencer (a telling detail that he likely planned to kill people "quietly" in the beginning of his attack as he approached his target). 

 

Look, there have been enough of these attacks around the globe now that nobody can make a serious case that churches aren't at risk.  If you are a churchgoer, make sure your leadership is taking security seriously.  Full disclosure, I'm on the board of Lionheart International Services Group, a company that does church security training.  For all my podcast subscribers I'm sending out links to our church security video training series, so head over to patreon.com/hotzone and subscribe to support the podcast and you'll get those and lots of other goodies.

 

Okay, I'm sure you heard about the earthquakes in California last week, and for a quake that was measured above 7, I have to say it's amazing there wasn't more damage and injuries.  A quake like that in many countries would result in thousands of dead from collapsed buildings and such.  Haiti comes to mind.  Well, last week in Medellin, Colombia a four-story building collapsed all by itself - no quake needed.  File this under reasons why building codes are a good thing.  Fortunately, only six people were believed to have been in the building, and at least three of them have already been found alive.

 

In haiti, where building codes were all but nonexistent, when the earthquake hit back in 2010 in some places ninety percent of the buildings collapsed in a matter of seconds.  A quarter million people died.  So as much as building inspectors, permits and such are a pain in the backside, this is the reason they are needed.

 

From one disaster to another - in Greece wildfires have forced the evacuations of several villages.  That's not really international news, but I just wanted to mention it because we have this awesome footage of a couple of firefighting planes dumping water on the fires.  Those are some pretty amazing pilots.

 

Now let's talk ISIS.  We've talked a lot about how the Islamic State might be kaput as a country, but it's definitely still around as a global terror organization.  In Khorasan province, ISIS fighters are claiming responsibility for an increasing number of attacks, and recently released a 12-minute video pledging allegiance to Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi.  They've released similar videos this year featuring jihadists in West Africa, the Sinai, the Caucasus and the Philippines, all renewing their fealty to Baghdadi.

 

Originally believed to be from Samarra, Iraq, Baghdadi has been the leader of ISIS since before it was called ISIS, back when Al Qaeda Iraq changed its name to The Islamic State of Iraq back in 2010. Since then, he's presided over the rise of one of the most brutal and publicity-saavy terror groups in modern history, and his many escapes from assassination or capture by western governments has earned him the nickname "the invisible sheikh" or " the ghost."  

 

In reality, we had this guy in our hands back in 2004, when he was arrested and sent to the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq for about nine months.  But we let him go, along with a bunch of other prisoners who were deemed to be "low risk".  Many of those guys also ended up as leaders in ISIS.  So great job, US intelligence!

 

Since getting crushed in Syria, ISIS has lived on through tens of thousands of jihadis around the world. That's because ISIS isn't an organization so much as an idea, kind of like anarchy.  You can kill the followers but you'll have a hard time killing the idea.  

 

Take the fact that there are still tens of thousands of ISIS brides languishing in camps in syria, where their Kurdish caretakers don't have the money or the manpower to care for them.  Many of these women are still die hard believers and claim that ISIS in Syria will rise again just as soon as their kids are raised.  

 

Germany has started to prosecute some of these women for war crimes. A 27-year old German woman is in court there being charged with a host of crimes including the murder of a 5-year-old Yezidi girl whom the ISIS woman and her husband bought as a slave, then left chained up outside like a dog in the hot sun until the poor little girl died of exposure.