Warning from House Intel About Russia’s Space Power | Channel Migrants Being Monitored Over Extremism Fears | Neo-Nazi Music Shows Return to Europe, and more

Germany’s Top Security Official Wants Easier Ways to Track Right-Wing Extremist Financing  (AP)
Germany’s top security official said Tuesday that she aims to make it easier to trace right-wing extremists’ financing and plans to set up an “early recognition unit” to detect far-right and foreign disinformation campaigns as early as possible. Interior Minister Nancy Faeser’s proposals follow large protests against the far right in Germany in recent weeks. They reflect growing concern after a report said extremists met to discuss deporting millions of immigrants, including some with German citizenship, and that some members of the far-right Alternative for Germany party, whose support has doubled since the country’s 2021 election, were present. Germany’s domestic intelligence agency says the number of far-right extremists has been rising. In 2022, it reached 38,800, with 14,000 of them considered potentially violent. The agency’s head, Thomas Haldenwang, said the numbers are believed to have risen again last year.

The Head of UN’s Nuclear Watchdog Warns Iran Is ‘Not Entirely Transparent’ on Its Atomic Program  (Jon Gambrel, AP)
The head of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog warned Tuesday that Iran is “not entirely transparent” regarding its atomic program, particularly after an official who once led Tehran’s program announced the Islamic Republic has all the pieces for a weapon “in our hands.” Speaking at the World Government Summit in Dubai, just across the Persian Gulf, Rafael Mariano Grossi, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, alluded to remarks made this weekend by Ali Akbar Salehi. Grossi noted “an accumulation of complexities” in the wider Middle East amid Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Iran, after the collapse of its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, has pursued nuclear enrichment just below weapons-grade levels. Tehran has accumulated enough enriched uranium to build several weapons, if it so chose. However, U.S. intelligence agencies and others assess that Iran has yet to begin a weapons program. Israel long has been believed to have its own nuclear weapons program.

Neo-Nazi Music Shows Return to Europe  (Tim Hume, Vice)
Alexander Ritzmann, senior adviser at the Counter Extremism Project, said that events like the concerts acted as “central networking hubs” for transnational extreme right-wing movements.  “They have a social function - [to] ‘make fascism fun’ - and they are used to make money for the movement through ticket sales, merchandise and catering,” he told VICE News.  Key figures in the right-wing extremist underground would typically meet up around the event and discuss areas of collaboration, including potentially violent actions.

Channel Migrants Being Monitored Over Extremism Fears  (Matt Dathan, The Times)
British security services are monitoring “numerous” migrants who have arrived illegally in small boats, the former immigration minister has said.
Robert Jenrick said there was “a well-evidenced connection between those arriving illegally and serious criminality” as he urged Rishi Sunak again to take more urgent and “robust” action to tackle illegal immigration.
In July, counter-terrorism officials said that they would “fully expect” individual terrorists to exploit the cross-Channel route in small boats, although they stressed that it was not a wider avenue that organized terrorist groups were using because most people who arrived went through a thorough security check and had their fingerprints and photographs taken.

Worst Antisemitism in U.K. for 40 Years  (James Beal and Oliver Wright, The Times)
The Hamas attacks on Israel and their aftermath drove antisemitism in Britain to its highest levels in over 40 years, new figures reveal, as the home secretary condemned the “utterly deplorable” rise.
James Cleverly decried recent “antisemitic hatred and abuse” after a charity’s report found that UK incidents surged almost 150 per cent to more than 4,000 in 2023.
Cleverly pledged to protect the Jewish community, as the group behind the report warned of an “explosion in hatred” on the streets following the October 7 atrocities.