RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2020/04/maladies-and-diseases/

There was a rare cheerfulness in much of the country over Christmas and the New Year. It would be hard to exaggerate the relief that many Britons felt after December’s unexpected election result. Thanks in large part to the people of the traditionally Labour-voting cities of the north of England, the country (and by extension the NATO alliance) had just been saved from a Corbyn government. The Tory prime minister Boris Johnson had won a large enough majority to avoid the political paralysis that had marked the previous six months. It seemed at least possible that, so equipped, this clever but transparently flawed chancer with a talent for winning the affection of ordinary people might achieve great things, or at least things that his more conventional predecessors and rivals had not.

In March, things felt rather different. There have been any number of reminders of the deep problems in British governance and society that recent governments have failed to grapple with. On February 2 for example, only two months after the London Bridge terrorist stabbing incident, yet another Islamist terrorism convict who had been released from prison “on licence”, attacked random citizens in the streets of Streatham. There could hardly have been a better illustration of the disastrous inadequacy of the country’s probation system, its under-staffed, overcrowded, poorly-run prisons, its laughable sentencing laws, its hopeless de-radicalisation programs and its failure to confront the ideological roots of Islamist terror.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/suspected-cartel-shootout-kills-19-in-northern-mexico_3298854.html

CIUDAD JUAREZ —A shootout between suspected drug cartel hitmen has killed 19 people in the northern Mexico state of Chihuahua, the state government said on Saturday, in one of the country’s worst outbreaks of gang violence this year.

“They’re two criminal groups fighting over drug trafficking routes to the United States,” Chihuahua’s attorney general Cesar Peniche told Reuters.

Security forces found 18 bodies on Friday evening at the site of the gunfight in the municipality of Madera, and a wounded man picked up at the scene later died of his injuries, the state attorney general’s office said in a statement.

They also secured 18 long firearms, two vehicles and two grenades, the statement said, adding that the search for armed men and the investigation of the site was continuing.

Local media reported that the gunmen belonged to groups linked to the Juarez Cartel and the rival Sinaloa Cartel, which Peniche said was correct.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/uk-prime-minister-boris-johnson-admitted-to-hospital-over-covid-19_3299338.html?utm_source=pushengage&utm_medium=pushnotification&utm_campaign=pushengage

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson was taken to the hospital for tests, coming just days after he was diagnosed with COVID-19, according to his office, which said the move is precautionary.

Johnson is one of nearly 48,000 UK residents to have contracted the potentially fatal Chinese Communist Party (CCP) virus, a novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

A Downing Street spokeswoman told UK news outlets: “On the advice of his doctor, the Prime Minister has tonight been admitted to hospital for tests.”

The spokeswoman added that Johnson, 55, has “continue[d] to have persistent symptoms of coronavirus 10 days after testing positive for the virus,” while stressing that his hospitalization was precautionary.

“The Prime Minister thanks [National Health Service] staff for all of their incredible hard work and urges the public to continue to follow the Government’s advice to stay at home, protect the NHS and save lives,” the statement read.

Johnson was diagnosed with the CCP virus on March 27 and was showing mild symptoms at the time, the government said. Johnson had informed his social media followers that he had mild symptoms before he tested positive.

https://pjmedia.com/trending/two-dead-five-wounded-in-terrorist-knife-attack-in-france/

A Sudanese national in the French town of  Romans-sur-Isere, just south of Lyon, went on a rampage Saturday on a busy street attacking 7 people, killing two and wounding five.

Police arrested him without incident when he was found kneeling on the ground “praying in the Arabic language.”

ABC News:

In a press release, the Counterterrorism Prosecutor’s office revealed that “handwritten documents with religious overtones in which the author of the lines complained in particular of living in a country of disbelievers” were found duringa search carried out at the suspect’s home.

The alleged perpetrator was taken into custody on charges of assassination and attempted assassination in connection with a terrorist enterprise and criminal terrorist association. An acquaintance of the suspect’s was also placed in police custody.

Police, deployed for the coronavirus pandemic, probably prevented a larger body count.

The Interior Minister saluted the mobilization of a hundred police officers during an ongoing nationwide lockdown to stem the spread of  COVID-19 which already claimed the lives of more than 6,000 in France.