RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/03/will-irans-regime-survive-coronavirus/

Soaring inflation. Deepening domestic discontent. An expanding environmental crisis. Even before the outbreak of the novel coronavirus in recent weeks, the Iranian regime was struggling under the weight of domestic problems that increasingly threatened to undermine the integrity of the Islamic Republic. With the advent of COVID-19, however, matters have become much, much worse for the Iranian regime — so much so that it isn’t unreasonable to think that the Iranian regime could buckle under the weight of its own internal contradictions. That’s because, for Iran’s ayatollahs, coronavirus represents a true “black swan” event.

The term, popularized by the scholar Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his 2008 book of the same name, refers to an improbable occurrence that cannot be reasonably predicted, but which has profound — and potentially catastrophic — consequences. This is what COVID-19 is for Iran.

The problems start with the failing health of Iran’s ruling class. The upper echelons of the Iranian leadership are overwhelmingly aging and infirm, and coronavirus is exacting a deadly toll on this cohort. As of March 4, the Washington Post had documented that the disease had afflicted “about two dozen members of parliament and at least 15 other current or former top figures.” That figure has expanded significantly since then, as has the number of high-profile casualties within the Islamic Republic. To date, the virus is known to have claimed the lives of Mohammad Mirmohammadi, an adviser to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, former deputy foreign minister Hossein Sheikholeslam, parliamentarians Mohammad Ali Ramezani Dastak and Fatimeh Rehber, and at least three other officials. More can certainly be expected in coming days.

https://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/visible-from-space-irans-coronavirus-mass-graves-give-the-lie-to-the-mullahs-propaganda/

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei has dismissed the coronavirus as “not that big a deal” but Iran’s Health Ministry has reported that 429 people have died of the virus, and the country’s deputy health minister has contracted the virus. New satellite imagery shows that mass graves in Qom, the mullahs’ spiritual center, are visible from space. This graveyard lends weight to the opposition party’s claim that the regime is underreporting the deaths and the number is closer to 1,500.

The Washington Post published images from the Colorado firm Maxar Technologies showing the mass graves visible from space.

The images show the Behesht-e Masoumeh complex in Qom, about 80 miles south of Tehran, where the excavation of a new section of the graveyard began as early as February 21, according to satellite imagery. The digging rapidly expanded as the virus spread. By the end of the month, two large trenches — their lengths adding up to 100 yards — had become visible from space, the Post reported.

Coronavirus spread quickly in Iran, spurred on in part by the Islamic regime’s close ties with China, according to The Wall Street Journal. The regime has reported that more than 10,000 people have contracted the disease and 429 have died. The dead include members of parliament, a former diplomat, and even a senior adviser to the supreme leader. The regime has reported that more than 846 people have contracted the coronavirus in Qom, a city of about 1.2 million.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/03/turkey-confronts-greece-more-hordes-syrian-joseph-klein/

Turkey’s Islamist President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is trying to engineer a mass invasion from Turkey into Greece of thousands of Syrian refugees and migrants. He has broken a deal reached with the European Union in 2016 to close its border with Europe to stem the flood of immigrants from the Middle East. He took Europe’s money that was part of the deal but is now reopening his country’s border with Greece to extort more concessions. “We will continue the current measure on our frontiers until all of our expectations are concretely met,” Erdogan said recently.

When Greece pushed back to protect its border from the invasion, Erdogan lashed out. “There is no difference with what the Nazis did and the images from the border,” he declared as he made unproven claims of “barbaric” tactics supposedly used by Greek border guards.

As Breitbart pointed out, “The slur against Greece is notable, as some 300,000 people were killed during the 1941 Nazi occupation of the country, which near-wiped out Greece’s Jewish population.” Then again, we should not be surprised. Erdogan is an avowed anti-Semite who has indulged in conspiracy theories blaming Jews for the world’s problems.

“Greece does not accept lessons in human rights and the respect of international law from the Turkish president,” said a spokesman for the Greek government. He claimed that Ankara’s actions were aimed at destabilizing Greece.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15729/coronavirus-europe-crisis

The number of new coronavirus cases in Europe has been doubling, on average, every 72 hours.

“It has increased in some countries over the last two weeks by one thousand… There is nothing to stop that expansion… unless those societies move aggressively… including introducing social distancing…. We need to modify our behavior. We need to start practicing that now. We have to modify our behavior in ways that reduces the risk of transmitting the virus….” — Dr. Richard Hatchett, Chief Executive Officer of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations.

“I think we need to start thinking in terms of the social risk. If I have a cold and I go to work and shake hands with my older colleague who has a chronic medical condition, I could be responsible for that colleague’s death. We all need to think about our responsibility to each other as we govern our behavior. We can’t view the epidemic in terms of our personal risk, we need to act collectively in a cooperative manner…” — Dr. Richard Hatchett.

Merkel said that her government’s top priority was to slow down the contagion to prevent a collapse of the German healthcare system.

The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has now reached more than 45 countries in Europe, where (as of March 12) more than 30,000 people have tested positive for the disease, according to a Gatestone Institute tally based on calculations from European health ministries.

The disease is spreading fast: more than 28,000 coronavirus cases (93% of all cases) in Europe were confirmed during just the first twelve days of March. The number of new cases has been doubling, on average, every 72 hours.