Daily Caller
World’s Largest State Sponsor Of Terrorism Sets Sights On New Goal: Become A Vacation Destination
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Jake Smith
The world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism, Iran, is setting its sights on a new goal: to become a first-rate resort and tourism destination.
Iran is sanctioned by vast swaths of the international community for its support and funding of various terrorist networks in the Middle East that have killed a number of U.S. forces in recent years. Though the Islamic regime is infamous for imposing an iron rule against the Iranian people and has one of the world’s worst economies, Tehran is hoping to break into the vacation game and bring in millions of tourists per year, according to reports.
“Tourism is the greatest asset for Iran’s cultural diplomacy,” Iranian Minister of Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts Seyyed Reza Salehi-Amiri said at an event Tuesday. “Cultural diplomacy fosters relations between nations, shared understanding, and collective peace and stability.”
“We must recognize that cultural heritage and tourism should become one of the country’s top three priorities. By promoting cultural diplomacy, we can aim for a future where tourism replaces the oil revenues as a primary economic driver,” Salehi-Amiri said.
Salehi-Amiri explained that the goal is to attract 15 million tourists to Iran by 2028. He also went on to say that Iran should build hundreds of new hotels by that year.
What our armed forces did was to inflict the minimum punishment on that usurping Zionist regime in response to its appalling crimes. It’s a bloodthirsty regime, a wolf-like regime, and the US’s rabid dog in the region.
— Khamenei.ir (@khamenei_ir) October 6, 2024
Iran enjoyed a 21% increase in tourism in 2023, according to the Tehran Times.
“Cultural heritage is Iran’s soft power. Just as we need hard power for deterrence, we need soft power to showcase our cultural and civilizational capacities to the world,” Salehi-Amiri said on Tuesday.
His comments leave many open questions in place, such as how practical it is to build hundreds of new hotels in such a short time frame, as Iran’s annual gross domestic product (GDP) is only a fraction of other Arab states in the region, such as Saudi Arabia the United Arab Emirates. Iran’s economy is considered “repressed,” given rampant corruption in the government, weak rule of law and a lack of robust trade relations with virtually any Western nation, according to The Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom.
There are also questions as to how the theoretical tourists would be treated, given Iran’s incredible hostility toward the West and scores of reports of human rights abuses, particularly against women. Because of corruption at even the highest ends of Iran’s government and law enforcement structure, these abuses often go unpunished.
The regime in Iran also sends a considerable amount of money to its various terrorist groups in the Middle East, including Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis. Iran’s chief export — oil — brings in money for the regime to send to its actors in the region.
Iranian oil revenues fell sharply under the former Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” sanctions campaign against Iran. However, in recent years under the Biden-Harris administration’s foreign policy and eased sanctions, Iran has made tens of billions in additional revenues.
Daily Caller
New York City Reportedly Seeking 14,000 Hotel Rooms For Migrants, To Spend Over $2 Billion As Crisis Rages On
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
“The taxpayers can’t pay for this indefinitely” …
Spending on migrant services for the next three years will reach a total of $5.76 billion… The average cost to house illegal migrants per room is $352 per night.
New York City officials are reportedly looking to keep thousands of hotel rooms available for illegal migrants as the crisis in the Big Apple rages on, according to the New York Post.
The city’s Department of Homeless Services is seeking a contract with local hotels to provide roughly 14,000 rooms in order to shelter migrants through 2025, according to a report from the New York Post. The city anticipates spending on migrants in need of housing for the current fiscal year and the past two years combined will surpass $2.3 billion, with a significant amount of these costs going toward hotel rent.
“The taxpayers can’t pay for this indefinitely,” Nicole Gelinas, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute think tank, said to the Post. “We should stop using hotels as shelters by the end of the year.”
Spending on migrant services for the next three years will reach a total of $5.76 billion, with around 150 hotels currently sheltering migrants, according to the Post. The average cost to house illegal migrants per room is $352 per night.
A spokesperson for New York City’s Department of Homeless Services did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Well over 200,000 migrants have overwhelmed New York City since the spring of 2022, according to city officials. The influx of illegal migrants forced Mayor Eric Adams to declare 5% budget cuts in September 2023 for government programs and services in order to pay for their housing and other services, and in August of that year he said the city was reaching a “breaking point” from the sheer volume of migrants.
Spending on migrant housing forced city leaders to cut back on how long people could remain in the shelter system. Adams had said that the city’s right-to-shelter laws were never intended for large-scale migrant populations.
Migrants living in city shelters were ordered to leave after 30 days with no ability to reapply, although some exceptions for medical conditions or “extenuating circumstances” were made, per a decree from the mayor in March. Migrants under the age of 23 were given 60 days to remain in the shelter system, and other exceptions were made for migrant families.
“This issue will destroy New York City,” Adams said during a September 2023 town hall. “Every community in this city is going to be impacted. We have a $12 billion deficit that we’re going to have to cut – every service in this city is going to be impacted.”
When addressing the public last month after being indicted on alleged bribery charges, Adams claimed he had been targeted by the Justice Department ever since he began speaking out about the city’s immigration crisis.
New York City has several sanctuary laws in place that restrict how federal immigration authorities can cooperate with local law enforcement. While some moderate lawmakers have attempted to roll back these laws in the wake of numerous high-profile incidents involving illegal migrants, those efforts have so far fallen flat with the City Council.
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Hailey Gomez
Hurricane Milton officially made landfall near Siesta Key, Florida, on Wednesday night as local residents have either bunkered down or fled from the areas expected to be hit, according to the National Hurricane Center.
Dropping from a Category 4 to Category 3 storm right before landfall, the devastating storm had 120 mph sustained winds and higher gusts, the National Hurricane Center reported. Warnings about Hurricane Milton began early in the week, with lawmakers and officials urging residents within Florida’s Gulf Coast area to flee from their homes or be prepared for disastrous impacts, according to The Associated Press News.
“As Hurricane Milton makes landfall near Sarasota county, now is the time to shelter in place. First responders are staged and ready to go, as soon as weather conditions allow. Search and rescue efforts will be well underway to save lives before dawn, and they will continue for as long as it takes,” Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis posted to X.
An estimated 2 million people, including those within the Tampa, St. Petersburg and Clearwater, Florida, area, were under a flash-flood warning from the Tampa National Weather Service, as “between 6 and 12 inches of rain” had already fallen.
Violent videos of the storm have began to circulating on X showing powerful winds tearing apart homes, trees and power lines.
BREAKING: Multiple people dead following tornado outbreak from Hurricane Milton in St. Lucie County, Florida, local media reports#HurricanMilton #miltonhurricane #Milton #StormFootage #FloridaStorm https://t.co/EoMxODqfuV pic.twitter.com/UrMEsXE22j
— Smriti Sharma (@SmritiSharma_) October 10, 2024
Early reports indicated fatalities occurred due to tornado touchdowns prior to landfall on Florida’s Atlantic coast, according to West Palm Beach-based affiliate WPTV. While details remain unclear about the deceased, St. Lucie County Sheriff Keith Pearson confirmed to the outlet “multiple people” have been killed.
The storm comes on the heels of Hurricane Helene, a Category 4 storm, which resulted in the deaths of over 200 people as it ripped through North Carolina, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia after first making landfall in Florida on the evening of Sept. 26.
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