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New Year is upon us for this 2016 and with it, we all embrace new hopes and expectations of good things and progress coming to us. Economy As we depart from 2015, we may recognize that at the national level, events were not always positive; although the economy did not fall to catastrophic levels, several sectors of our economy, the energy machinery being one of them, experienced insurmountable challenges producing devastation for many companies, individuals and families across the land. One of the big reasons why the oil industry is having such a tremendous problem is because of the crash in the price of petroleum.  Over the past 18 months, the price of oil has plummeted from $108 a barrel to $37 a barrel. It is important to notice that there has only been one other time in all of history when we have ever seen an oil price crash of this magnitude. That was in 2008 – just before the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression. The following graphic depicts this event: (Source: US Energy Information Administration) Graphic to the left depicts the fall of petroleum prices

In the global theater, economy played a central component as many significant world economies faced problems and challenges. Three of them may be noticing amongst the diverse international economic landscape: Brazil, Canada, and China. The Brazilians have the 7th largest economy in the world, and Goldman Sachs says that they have plunged into an “outright depression“.  In the chart below, you can see the sharp downturn that took place in August, and Brazilian stocks kept falling all the way to the end of 2015. Canada has the 11th largest economy on the entire planet. The year 2015 was a terrible year for Canadian stocks as well, and they just kept falling all the way steadily through December.

BRAZIL

CANADA

Central in the global news was the economic meltdown of the Chinese economy.  The Chinese have the second largest economy on the globe, and news about their economic slowdown is making headlines almost every single day even seven months after summer 2015. Chinese stocks crashed about 40 percent, and they did manage to bounce back just a bit since then. But they are still down about 30 percent from the peak of the market. A particular word is worth mentioning about Greece. This country went into bankruptcy after years of several ill administrations and a rampant corruption. After some long months of complex negotiations between Greece and its creditors, Greece received its third bailout in five years. Meaning that the country received two previous bailouts for Greece to continue surviving within the European Union.

CHINA

Safety and Terrorism At a global level, violence and terrorism across the world had an impressive footprint in 2015 with a total of 385 acts or terrorism in the year 2015 in the world. Number of global terrorist attacks in 2015 - 385 January – 29, February – 13, March – 22, April – 20, May – 30, June – 30 July – 41,August – 29, September – 16, October – 51, November – 53, December – 51 A detailed list of these acts of terrorism could be found at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents,_2015 National Violence and Terrorism image Unfortunately, there were many actions of violence as well as terrorists’ plots inside our nation. The subject is complex, and there are as many schools of thought as to the reason and the solution to the issue of violence and terrorism at the national level as specialist of the matter you could find. Each one of these specialists and think- tankers holds their view and solution to the problem of terrorism in the USA. Within this subject, the participation of national citizens, legal residents or illegal migrants Muslims followers, in the act of executing terrorists acts against national citizens, installations or public in general inside the USA, was at the center of newscasts across the nation during 2015. The number of these incidents is at least, in the fifties.

Below is a sampling of more than 20 cases of terrorist plots against the U.S. by Muslim immigrants that have received little to no national media coverage over the last two years. All of the below terrorists and suspected terrorists would have passed through the federal government’s vaunted “vetting” process for refugees, asylum seekers and other types of immigrants: • An immigrant from Muslim-dominated Bangladesh, who applied for and received U.S. citizenship,‎ tried to incite people to travel to Somalia and conduct violent jihad against the United States. He was arrested in Texas in 2014. • In July 2015, a Cuban immigrant inspired by Islamic extremists plotted to explode a backpack bomb filled with nails on a beach in Key West. • An immigrant from Ghana, who applied for and received U.S. citizenship, pledged allegiance to ISIS and plotted a terrorist attack on U.S. soil. He attacked an FBI agent with a large kitchen knife when the agent was searching his home in June in Staten Island, New York. The search was connected to an investigation stemming from the weekend arrest of Munther Omar Saleh, a 20-year-old U.S. citizen charged with conspiring to provide material support to ISIS, CNN reported. • An immigrant from Sudan living in northern Virginia, who applied for and received U.S. citizenship, tried to join ISIS and wage jihad on its behalf after having been recruited online. He pleaded guilty in federal court in June 2015 to providing material support to ISIS and his friend, according to court records, is now a member of the Islamic State fighting force in Syria. • A Muslim refugee couple from Bosnia, along with their five relatives living in Missouri, Illinois and New York, were charged in February 2015 with sending money, supplies and smuggled arms to ISIS and other terrorist organizations in Syria and Iraq. • A Muslim immigrant from Yemen, who applied for and received U.S. citizenship, along with six other men living in Minnesota as members of refugee families, were charged in April 2015 with conspiracy to travel to Syria and to provide material support to ISIS. • A Somali refugee with lawful permanent resident status, along with four other Somali nationals, were charged July 23, 2014, with leading an al-Shabaab terrorist fundraising conspiracy in the United States, with monthly payments directed to the Somali terrorist organization. • A Kazakhstani immigrant with lawful permanent resident status conspired to purchase a machine gun to shoot FBI and other law enforcement agents if they prevented him from traveling to Syria to join ISIS. He and two others from Uzbekistan, both living in Brooklyn, were charged in February 2015 with providing material support a foreign terrorist organization. • Two female immigrants, one from Saudi Arabia and one from Yemen, one of whom applied for and received U.S. citizenship, allegedly swore allegiance to ISIS and pledged to explode a propane tank bomb on U.S. soil. They were arrested in April 2015 during an FBI undercover raid on their house in Queens, New York. • A Uzbek man in Brooklyn allegedly encouraged other Uzbek nationals to wage jihad on behalf of ISIS, and raised $1,600 for the terror organization. The arrests were announced in February and April 2015. • The Boston Bombers were invited in as asylum seekers. The younger brother applied for citizenship and was naturalized on Sept. 11, 2012. The older brother had a pending application for citizenship. • A Moroccan Muslim who came to the U.S. on a student visa was arrested and charged in April 2014 with plotting to blow up a university and a federal courthouse. • Six members of Minnesota’s Somali-American refugee community have recently been charged with trying to join ISIS. The Washington Times reported that “the effort [to resettle large groups of Somali refugees in Minnesota] is having the unintended consequence of creating an enclave of immigrants with high unemployment that is both stressing the state’s safety net and creating a rich pool of potential recruiting targets for Islamist terror groups.” • An Uzbek refugee living in Boise, Idaho, was arrested in 2013 and charged with providing support to a terrorist organization, in the form of teaching terror recruits how to build bombs to blow up U.S. military installations. He was convicted in August 2015. • A teenage American citizen living in York, South Carolina, whose family emigrated from Syria, was sentenced in April 2015 for plotting to support ISIS and rob a gun store to kill members of the American military. • A Muslim immigrant from Syria living in Ohio, who later applied for and received U.S. citizenship, was accused by federal prosecutors of planning to “go to a military base in Texas and kill three or four American soldiers execution style.” • A college student, who came to America as a refugee from Somalia and later applied for and received U.S. citizenship, attempted to blow up a Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Oregon. He was sentenced in October 2014 to 30 years in prison. • An immigrant from Afghanistan, who later applied for and received U.S. citizenship, and a legal permanent resident from the Philippines, were convicted Sept. 25, 2014, for trying to “join Al Qaeda and the Taliban in order to kill Americans.” • An Iraqi immigrant, who later applied for and received U.S. citizenship, was arrested in May 2015 for lying to federal agents about pledging allegiance to ISIS and his travels to Syria. • Two Pakistani-American brothers living in New York, who later applied for and received U.S citizenship, were sentenced in June 2015 to decades-long prison sentences for plotting to detonate a bomb in New York City. • An immigrant from Muslim-dominated Yemen, who later applied for and received U.S. citizenship, was arrested in September 2014 in Rochester, New York, for allegedly trying to join ISIS. He was also charged with attempting to illegally buy firearms to try to shoot American military personnel. • An immigrant brought here by his family from Kuwait at age 6, and who was later approved for U.S. citizenship, carried out the jihadist attack that recently killed four U.S. Marines and a sailor in Chattanooga on July 16, 2015, using an AK-47 semi-automatic weapon against unarmed military men. Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2015/11/big-list-all-these-terror-attacks-in-u-s-covered-up-by-feds/#EFFY4uAC194rBCso.99

What about 2016? It is in our nature to hope for better times and better situations in general. For this new 2016, our general view is that the world and our nation will be better in general terms. Do we all believe humanity will not be challenged by economic, weather, social or, even more, terrorist events? No, people do not think this to be the truth. However, we humans are by nature, creatures of hope, dreams and the desire for a better life. We rejoice and celebrate with enthusiasm our traditions and the arrival of a New Year. We all across the planet elevate our vote and our prayer for a better time to come and for the realization of our dreams and aspirations. We all, regardless of where we are, what our condition may be, what our social status is, our place of residence, the faith we embrace and the color or our skin, want to have a decent life, progress, and prosperity for ourselves and for the ones we love. Happy New Year 2016