Gangs

How do you get a gold bar through customs?

***

THe lower 80% of income earners have less in liquidity in June of this year than they did before the pandemic.

***

This is incredible.

In the spring of 2014, senior Iranian Foreign Ministry officials initiated a quiet effort to bolster Tehran’s image and positions on global security issues — particularly its nuclear program — by building ties with a network of influential overseas academics and researchers. They called it the Iran Experts Initiative. At least three of the people on the Foreign Ministry’s list were, or became, top aides to Robert Malley, the Biden administration’s special envoy on Iran, who was placed on leave this June following the suspension of his security clearance.
A Ms.Tabatabai currently serves in the Pentagon as the chief of staff for the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations, a position that requires a U.S. government security clearance. She previously served as a diplomat on Malley’s Iran nuclear negotiating team after the Biden administration took office in 2021. Esfandiary is a senior advisor on the Middle East and North Africa at the International Crisis Group, a think tank that Malley headed from 2018-2021.

***

Gangs

Crime is one solution to problems in a subset of society. However, organized crime is more efficient and creative. See mob smash-and-grab store theft.

Sweden’s center-right government has been tightening laws to tackle gang-related crime, while the head of Sweden’s police said earlier this month that warring gangs had brought an “unprecedented” wave of violence to the Scandinavian country.

"Several boys aged between 13 and 15 have been killed, the mother of a criminal was executed at home, and a young man in Uppsala was shot dead on his way to work,” police chief Anders Thornberg told a news conference on Sept. 13. He estimated that some 13,000 people are linked to Sweden’s criminal underworld.

Sweden? Is this gang stuff catching on?