Apartment Prices Are Crashing In Major Cities Worldwide

Covid's effect on cities is starting to hit the price of rentals - and it's not just in the United States.

Apartment prices in some of the richest cities in the world are starting to show the effects of an exodus out of crowded city areas in order to move to more spacious suburbs. A slowing ebb and flow of international students, combined with a younger generation growing disinterested in paying city-price premiums, are both helping the demand side of the rental equation dry up.

Tim Lawless, Asia Pacific head of research for data provider CoreLogic Inc., told Bloomberg: “You’re daft if you aren’t negotiating lower rent right now. Supply is high and occupancy has fallen off a cliff.”'

https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/apartment-prices-are-crashing-major-cities-worldwide

7-Eleven owners pay more than $176 million to employees five years after wages scandal revealed

Operators of 7-Eleven stores have paid back more than $176 million to staff and made more than $10 million worth of improvements five years after an investigation began into wage theft at the company.

Key points:

Employees now clock in and out with a thumbprint that is cross-checked using facial recognition software

A Fair Work Ombudsman inquiry found 7-Eleven franchisees had falsified records to hide stolen wages

Franchisors can now be held responsible for their franchisees' conduct and may be subject to court proceedings and penalties

An inquiry by the Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO), which launched after media reports revealed the extent of underpayments made by franchisees, found several store owners had deliberately falsified records to disguise wage underpayments.

Between September 2015 and February 2020, 7-Eleven back-paid more than $176.3 million in wages, interest and superannuation to 4,043 current and former franchisee employees.

The FWO said 7-Eleven voluntarily entered into a Compliance Deed in December 2016 to improve compliance across its network.

The deed was a recommendation from the ombudsman's inquiry into the stores, which found significant underpayments to 7-Eleven staff.

The ombudsman's inquiry found several 7-Eleven franchisees had deliberately falsified records to disguise wage underpayments and that 7-Eleven's approach to workplace matters did not detect or address deliberate non-compliance.

The FWO brought 11 lawsuits against 7-Eleven franchisees resulting in courts awarding more than $1.8 million in penalties against them.

The penalties included franchisees operating unlawful cash-back schemes, paying unlawful flat rates to workers, and falsifying records.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-10-30/7-11-pays-back-$176-million-worth-of-backpay-super-to-staff/12831176

ICE assists in seizure of $248 million worth of cocaine hidden in banana pulp

Arrest, seizure of 117 kg of meth concealed in boxes of PPE on same weekend

SYNDEY – U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Canberra provided the Australian Border Force (ABF) with information that resulted in the seizure of 552 kilograms of cocaine worth an estimated $248 million. The operation leading to the seizure began in September 2020 following information from HSI on a suspected shipment containing drugs destined for Australia.

HSI Canberra provided Australian authorities with details on the possibility of narcotics smuggled into Australia concealed as bananas from Brazil. The container was identified and inspected by the ABF on Sept. 21 and held for further investigation by the Australian Federal Police (AFP). ABF officers identified anomalies within the approximately 275 boxes in the shipment that contained banana pulp, and upon closer examination, ultimately discovered cocaine hidden within the banana pulp bags.

“This joint investigation demonstrates the importance of strong international partnerships when it comes to dismantling transnational criminal organizations,” said ICE Canberra Attaché Adam Parks. “By working together, we were able to swiftly gather crucial information on the smuggling of cocaine through a shipment of fruit to Australia. I commend HSI Brazil and our Australian partners their professionalism, devotion and unrelenting efforts on targeting organizations and individuals involved in these major transnational crimes.”

In the two weeks following the detection, HSI Canberra, the AFP, the ABF, and the New South Wales Police Force monitored the narcotics and conducted additional investigative steps in furtherance of the case. The joint investigation led to the execution of search warrants Oct. 16, when officers seized mobile phones, a laptop, a case of green stones suspected to be emeralds, and five one-kilogram silver ingots. The investigation also resulted in the arrest of a 68-year-old man from north Sydney.

The investigation leading to these enforcement actions was worked jointly between HSI, the AFP, and the ABF, with support from HSI Brasilia and the National Targeting Center – Investigations.

On Oct. 17, AFP also arrested a 43-year-old Carlingford woman for her alleged involvement in the importation of approximately 117 kilograms of methamphetamine hidden in a shipment of latex gloves. The information leading to this arrest was developed in July 2020, when HSI special agents and Border Enforcement Security Task Force officers in Los Angeles inspected a shipping container of latex gloves and concrete besser blocks bound for Sydney. During the search, agents and officers identified 12 cardboard boxes with 47 individually wrapped clear plastic bags of a crystalline substance that was determined to be 117 kilograms of methamphetamine. The methamphetamine was seized in the United States by HSI Los Angeles. The shipment continued its scheduled route to Sydney, where Australian authorities awaited its arrival, and subsequently launched the operation leading to the arrest. This was an HSI-led investigation with assistance from U.S. Customs and Border Protection and AFP.

The HSI International Operations Division is the Department of Homeland Security’s largest investigative presence overseas. Division personnel serve as liaisons to governments and law enforcement agencies across the globe and work side-by-side with foreign law enforcement on HSI investigations. HSI is the principal investigative arm of DHS and a vital U.S. asset in combatting

https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/ice-assists-seizure-248-million-worth-cocaine-hidden-banana-pulp

More Than 50 Azerbaijani Strikes Targeted Armenian Troops In Nagorno-Karabakh In The Last 24 Hours

On October 29, the Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan released videos of recent drone and rocket strikes on Armenian forces in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

The strikes seen in the videos targeted more than 27 posts and gatherings of Armenian troops as well as the following equipment:

5 D-20 howitzers;

1 D-30 howitzer;

2 2S1 Gvozdika self-propelled howitzers;

1 BM-21 multiple rocket launcher;

2 trucks;

1 SUV;

1 P-18 Radar;

1 Communication center.

https://youtu.be/zSBmiIMBFKk

https://youtu.be/efTSM1qSKSA

https://youtu.be/vrhSxlJ-VbA

Most of the strikes seen in the videos were carried out with Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2 combat drones. The rest were apparently carried out with precision-guided rockets, like the Israeli-made ACCULAR and EXTRA which are known to be in service with the Azerbaijani military.

The Azerbaijani MoD also released a video showing recent artillery and rocket strikes on Armenian forces positions in Nagorno-Karabakh.

https://youtu.be/3H9F4oCogvk

Despite inflicting heavy losses on Armenian forces, the Azerbaijani Armed Forces are advancing slowly in Nagorno-Karabakh. Most of their gains have been limited to the southeastern part of the region.

https://southfront.org/more-than-50-azerbaijani-strikes-targeted-armenian-troops-in-nagorno-karabakh-in-the-last-24-hours-videos/

France brought Jihad on itself, now has some tough decisions to make – former anti-terrorism cop to RT

A spate of stabbing attacks are the result of France’s failed experiment with multiculturalism, former UK counterterrorism chief Chris Philipps told RT. When the liberal West and Islamic East clash, he said, violence follows.

“I do believe that France and the West brought a lot of this on themselves,” Philipps told RT on Thursday. “They’ve invited people to come to their country and allowed people to come to their country who’ve no thought process of eventually assimilating.”

“French culture, you either accept it or you don’t, and these people clearly haven’t,” he continued.

Earlier, a knife-wielding attacker killed three people in a church in Nice, police in Avignon shot another knifeman dead, and another alleged terrorist attack was foiled near a church in Sartrouville, near Paris. Additionally, police in Saudi Arabia arrested a man for stabbing a guard outside the French consulate in Jeddah.

French President Emmanuel Macron called the Nice attacker an “Islamist terrorist,” and deployed troops to guard churches and schools. Just days earlier, Macron had vowed to clamp down on “the evil that is radical Islam,” after a teenage Muslim beheaded a teacher for showing his class a caricature of the Prophet Mohammed.

Macron’s army deployment may reassure the public in the short term, but Philipps said that it’s “pretty much impossible” to screen out potential future attackers, and harder again to deport or detain them, as in his experience in the UK, many suspects were British citizens.

“We’ve got 20 or 30 thousand people of concern in the UK. France probably has far more than that,” he explained. "If you go to Nice there’s a massive North African contingent there.”

French media outlets have reported that the Nice attacker – who was shot and arrested by police – was a 21-year-old Tunisian migrant. Four years earlier, a Tunisian was behind the wheel of a 19-ton truck that plowed through crowds of people on the city’s iconic waterfront, killing 84 and injuring more than 400. France’s population is nearly nine percent Muslim, the highest percentage in any Western country. Of these 5.7 million Muslims, the percentage who harbor extreme views is unknown, but in 2016, three quarters of all suspected radicals on a government watch list were radical Islamists.

Philipps said that in his experience, he was surprised how many moderate Muslims see cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed as “extremely offensive” and understand “the idea of taking revenge.”

The core of the problem, he said, is the incompatibility of Islam with the liberal West. “When the cultures clash so much, and it leads to this kind of violence,” he said, governments need to “make some decisions” regarding the future of multiculturalism and open society.

https://www.rt.com/news/504921-france-attacks-failed-integration/

Harley Rouda’s Companies Racked Up Hundreds of Thousands in Tax Liens

As business owner, Rouda also terminated employee health care and 401(k) plans

Businesses connected to California Democratic representative Harley Rouda were subject to nearly $230,000 in local, state, and federal tax liens, documents reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon show.

Rouda spent decades as a real estate executive prior to his successful congressional bid in 2018. The Democrat owned stakes in a multitude of companies in the industry through his investment firm, Trident Holdings, which he registered in 2001 under the name Real Living, Inc. In November 2011, the company received a Franklin County, Ohio, lien notice showing more than $117,000 in unpaid taxes from 2009 to 2011. Rouda served as the company's "Chief Executive Officer and Managing Partner" at the time, according to a 2009 Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

Rouda's firm was also subject to a roughly $52,000 federal tax lien between the 2012 and 2015 tax years. The Democrat remained the company's CEO at the time, having served in the role "since February 2002," according to a since-deleted 2018 Bloomberg executive profile. State filings show that Rouda was not removed as the firm's registered agent until August 2020—in total, businesses connected to Rouda faced 33 liens totaling $228,835.34 from 2003 to 2020.

https://s3.freebeacon.com/up/2020/10/Screen-Shot-2020-10-29-at-4.10.37-PM-814x1024.png