RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/05/25/the-twilight-of-the-iranian-revolution

For decades, Ayatollah Khamenei has professed enmity with America. Now his regime is threatened from within the country.

One night last December, the chief resident physician at a hospital in the Iranian city of Gorgan was asked to consult on a baffling case: a patient was racked with a mysterious virus, which was advancing rapidly through his body. The doctor, who asked to be identified only as Azad, for fear of retribution by authorities, performed a CT scan and a series of chest X-rays, but the virus overwhelmed the patient before he could decide on a treatment. After reading reports from China, Azad determined that the cause of death was the coronavirus. “I’d never seen anything like it before,” he told me.

More patients started coming in, first a few at a time, then in droves, many of them dying. When Azad and his colleagues alerted hospital officials that they were treating cases of the coronavirus, they were told to keep quiet. “We were given special instructions not to release any statistics on infection and death rates,” a second doctor told me. The medical staff was ordered not to wear masks or protective clothing. “The aim was to prevent fear in the society, even if it meant high casualties among the medical staff,” Azad said.

As the weeks went on, and the epidemic exploded in China, the Iranian media remained nearly silent. Two reporters who work at a news outlet in Tehran told me that they could see accounts of the virus on social media, but their editors made it clear they should not pursue them; nationwide parliamentary elections were scheduled for February 21st, and news about the virus could discourage voters. “Everyone knows what stories can get you in trouble,” one reporter told me. “It was understood that anything that helped to lower turnout would be helping the counter-revolutionaries, and no one wanted to be accused of supporting foreign-based opposition groups.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/frances-macron-loses-absolute-majority-as-lawmakers-defect-11589882166?mod=world_major_1_pos5

PARIS—A group of lawmakers broke away from French President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist political party on Tuesday, depriving the leader of an absolute majority in the National Assembly at a critical juncture in his efforts to steer France out of the coronavirus crisis.

The defections leave Mr. Macron’s party, Republic On the Move, with 288 of the 577 seats in France’s National Assembly, down from 308 when he was elected. To pass legislation, Mr. Macron will now have to rely more heavily on his political alliance with Modem, a smaller centrist party that has moved in lockstep with the president in the past.

The lawmakers announced the move in a videoconference Tuesday, saying they planned to caucus in the National Assembly as a new group called “Ecology democracy solidarity.” The group, which totals 17 members, also includes lawmakers that defected from Mr. Macron earlier in his term.

“We are at a historical tipping point, and the decisions that will be taken in the next weeks, months will shape the future of France, of our planet” said Paula Forteza, co-president of the new political group, adding that the government should focus on social justice and the protection of the environment rather than short-term economic policies.

A spokeswoman for Republic on the Move declined to comment. Earlier this month, Republic on the Move’s parliamentary whip Gilles Le Gendre wrote to party lawmakers over the encrypted messaging app Telegram, saying that any defections would represent a breach of trust with Mr. Macron and voters.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-nears-settlement-with-sudan-over-1998-terror-bombings-11589922441

WASHINGTON—The Trump administration is nearing a deal with Sudan to resolve claims over al Qaeda’s 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa, helping clear the way to remove Khartoum’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism.

The plan is part of U.S. efforts to support the civilian-led transitional government in Sudan, whose armed forces last year ousted President Omar al-Bashir, a military dictator who seized power in 1989. Earlier this year, Sudan settled terrorism-related claims from the 2000 al Qaeda suicide bombing of the USS Cole during its call at Aden, Yemen, which the Bashir regime allegedly had assisted.

“Following extensive negotiations, we believe that we have reached a common understanding with Sudan on the contours of a future bilateral claims agreement” over the embassy bombings, a State Department official said Tuesday. Victims would receive more than $300 million altogether, a congressional aide said.

The 1998 attacks in Kenya and Tanzania killed hundreds and injured thousands, and various groups of victims are represented by different legal teams. Twelve Americans were killed.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16042/china-cyber-war

Beijing’s cyber offensive against the Free World is only part of what appears China’s effort to achieve global leadership in critical future technologies such as artificial intelligence, renewable energy systems, robotics, rare earth element exploitation, biotechnologies, as well as medical and agricultural advances.

These attacks will likely continue, as past attempts by U.S. administrations to reach cessation agreements with Beijing seem to have been futile. China clearly views cyber attacks as a weapon of warfare with little risk of eliciting an aggressive U.S. response. In fact, PLA leaders in China’s Guangzhou Military Region have publicly called for Chinese operators to continue the “People’s War,” win the cyber war, and prepare for attacks on satellites in space.

China’s Cyber War on America has been ceaseless, comprehensive and longstanding. In the past 15 years, China has hacked official government departments, defense contractors, utility companies, and U.S. and allied intelligence agencies. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has, it appears, integrated China’s cyber attack capabilities into its apparent overall plan to surpass the U.S. as the world’s leading power.

As part of its efforts, the CCP has for years built up a sophisticated infrastructure within the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to steal critical technical data from U.S. public and private targets. The PLA units in the Second and Third Departments of the General Staff are the principal engineers of China’s vast assault to collect U.S. intellectual property.[1] Another unit, probably in the PLA’s General Staff’s Fourth Department, concentrates its electronic warfare systems to seed malware into U.S. computer networks.[2]

Beijing’s cyber offensive against the Free World, however, is only part of what appears China’s effort to achieve global leadership in critical future technologies such as artificial intelligence, renewable energy systems, robotics, rare earth element exploitation, biotechnologies, as well as medical and agricultural advances. The Chinese government also exploits bilateral commerce with the U.S. and investment by U.S. companies in the Chinese economy to steal trade secrets.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16041/black-day-palestinian-journalism

The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate (PJS) has denounced the order as a “black day in the history of Palestinian journalism and a massacre against freedom of expression.”

The number of Palestinian journalists targeted by the Palestinian Authority may have dropped, but it is obvious that most of these reporters practice self-censorship and take extreme care to avoid angering their leaders.

That is most likely why most Palestinian journalists living in PA-controlled areas rarely, if ever, report on issues that reflect negatively on Palestinian leaders. The only freedom of expression they are allowed to practice is one that includes heaping praise on Palestinian leaders while bashing Israel on a daily basis.

Those journalists probably see themselves as foot soldiers in the Palestinian national struggle to destroy Israel and replace it with yet another extremist Muslim state.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) is ignoring calls to lift a ban on dozens of news websites and social media channels that were blocked more than six months ago, raising concern among Palestinian journalists that their leaders are still working to muzzle critical voices.

The PA’s refusal to comply with the appeals coincided with World Press Freedom Day, a worldwide event marked on May 3 to celebrate the fundamental principles of press freedom, to evaluate press freedom around the world, to defend the media from attacks on their independence and to pay tribute to journalists who have lost their lives in the exercise of their profession.

While journalists around the world were celebrating World Press Freedom Day, their Palestinians colleagues were still fighting against restrictions imposed on them by the PA and its leaders. Nearly three decades after the signing of the Oslo Accords and the establishment of the PA, the Palestinians still do not have a free and independent media.

On October 17, 2019, the Palestinian Magistrate Court in Ramallah ordered local internet providers to block access to 59 news websites in accordance with a request from the Palestinian attorney general’s office. The order was issued under the Palestinian Cybercrime Law, which allows authorities to direct internet service providers to block websites that allegedly threaten national security, civil peace, public order, or public morals.

According to Palestinian sources, the court order targets websites, blogs and Facebook pages that oppose the PA and its president, Mahmoud Abbas, as well as several senior Palestinian officials.