RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15439/china-destroying-multilateralism

If Wang Binyang is selected in March, she will be able to bend international rules to favor her country’s assault on others’ technology. In any event, her nomination reveals Beijing brazen ambition to dominate multilateral institutions…. Beijing’s placement of officials inside multilaterals has greatly facilitated its malign activities.

From its perch on the UN Security Council, for instance, Beijing has placed itself in a position to attack freedom and democracy. It was the force behind a just-passed, Russian-sponsored General Assembly resolution to create a new convention that, many fear, will be used to restrict online expression worldwide.

“Why is the World Bank loaning money to China?” President Trump tweeted on December 6, “Can this be possible?”

The institutions created after the Second World War, unfortunately, are not adapting well to this century. The ardent proponents of multilateralism have failed to protect global institutions. China has undermined them from the inside, and now those advocates are not dealing with Chinese predation but instead taking potshots at Trump’s corrective efforts.

Trump has cooperated with international organizations when he could and has worked to replace the others. As he moves forward, he is creating a more realistic and enduring international order.

China, the world’s leading cyberattacker and master intellectual property thief, in November nominated one of its nationals to head the UN’s World Intellectual Property Organization. If Wang Binyang is selected in March, she will be able to bend international rules to favor her country’s assault on others’ technology. In any event, her nomination reveals Beijing’s brazen ambition to dominate multilateral institutions.

Beijing’s placement of officials inside multilateral institutions has greatly facilitated its malign activities. Take the case of Fang Liu, the secretary general of the Montreal-based International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). Last February, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) reported that she hindered the investigation of a November 2016 cyberattack, called the “most serious” in that institution’s history. Emissary Panda, a hacker group with ties to the Chinese government, was thought to be behind assaults on the ICAO’s network. Dr. Liu came to the UN’s ICAO from China’s aviation regulator, the Civil Aviation Administration of China.

Liu protected, among others, James Wan, the ICAO’s deputy director and head of information and communication technology, who repeatedly undermined the probe into the cyberattacks. Wan has current links to two institutions associated with a known hacker, China’s People’s Liberation Army.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15307/turkey-jailing-journalists

“Scores of journalists remain behind bars or under travel bans as a consequence of an extended, politically motivated crackdown against the media.” — “Turkey’s Journalists in the Dock: The Judicial Silencing of the Fourth Estate”, September 13, 2019.

“A subsequent wide-ranging capture of the judiciary has progressively and severely damaged the rule of law and the public’s right to access information…” — “Turkey’s Journalists in the Dock: The Judicial Silencing of the Fourth Estate”, September 13, 2019.

“Pre-trial detention for hundreds of journalists has lasted for months and sometimes years before investigations are completed and the trials can begin.” — “Turkey’s Journalists in the Dock: The Judicial Silencing of the Fourth Estate”, September 13, 2019.

According to the latest report by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Turkey fell below its ranking as the world’s worst jailer of journalists for the first time in four years — dropping behind even China. That rating is not exactly indicative of an improvement in Ankara’s stance towards the media. On the contrary, as CPJ revealed on December 11:

“[T]he fall to 47 journalists in jail from 68 [in 2018] reflects the successful efforts by the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to stamp out independent reporting and criticism by closing down more than 100 news outlets and lodging terror-related charges against many of their staff.”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/01/iran-shoots-down-university-windsor-five-lloyd-billingsley/

Early last Wednesday, Ukrainian International Airlines Flight 752 took off from Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport. Within five minutes, the Boeing 737-800 came flaming down in what the Iranian regime initially claimed was an accident due to engine failure. Before week’s end, the regime admitted the missile launch that downed the aircraft killing 82 Iranians, 63 Canadians, 11 Ukrainians, 10 Swedes, four Afghans, three British citizens, and three Germans.

Thirteen of the victims were involved in engineering and scientific research at four universities in southwestern Ontario, Canada. Grieving relatives have cause to wonder about the way the shootdown was brokered to the public.

Victims from the University of Windsor included Zahra Naghibi, 32, a PhD student in engineering, and her husband Mohammed Abbaspour Ghadi, 33, a civil engineer and UW graduate. Samira Bashiri, 29, was a research assistant in biology and her husband Hamidreza Setareh Kokab, 31, was a PhD student in industrial engineering. Pedram Jadidi, 28, was a PhD student in engineering.

According to a January 10 report by Doug Schmidt of the Windsor Star, “Just minutes after takeoff, the Boeing 737-800 crashed, with some news reports on Thursday accusing the Iranian military of an accidental missile strike. Just hours earlier, Iran had launched a missile attack on U.S. military bases in neighboring Iraq in retaliation over the U.S. assassination of a top Iranian general last Friday.”

On January 11, the Star’s Julie Kotsis covered a memorial service for “five University of Windsor colleagues killed Wednesday in a plane crash in Iran,” with no speculation about an Iranian shootdown, and no quest for answers. That marked a stark contrast to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/freedom-stages-a-comeback-11578956042?mod=opinion_featst_pos1

Pity the world’s struggling despots. Just when everything seemed to be going their way, life got messy.

China appeared poised to tighten its grip on Hong Kong last summer with the infamous extradition bill. That hasn’t quite panned out. Not only have the protesters kept their movement alive in the face of relentless hostility from Beijing; they humiliated the Chinese Communist Party in local elections in November by taking majorities in 17 out of 18 district councils. Meanwhile in Taiwan, Tsai Ing-wen, whose re-election prospects seemed doubtful last summer, swept to a landslide victory Saturday as voters embraced her party’s determination to defend Taiwanese freedom from an increasingly menacing mainland.

In Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro’s thuggish regime had enjoyed some success in repressing Juan Guaidó, who is recognized as the legitimate president of Venezuela by more than 60 countries. But last week regime pressure failed to keep the National Assembly in line and 100 of its 167 members defied Mr. Maduro to support Mr. Guaidó’s re-election as the assembly’s president.

Tehran’s attempts to gain greater regional hegemony haven’t gone smoothly either. In Iraq, anti-Iranian protests shook up the political system late last year. Iraqi security forces and Iranian-backed militias killed hundreds of demonstrators but failed to quell protests in the strongly Shiite south against political corruption and Iranian influence. Lebanon has seen its own wave of protests also aimed at a corrupt political elite and Iranian influence.

In Iran itself, where authorities hoped the American killing of Qasem Soleimani would unite ordinary Iranians behind the regime, the opposite has come to pass. Waves of antigovernment protests spread across the country as authorities first launched an awkward and unconvincing effort to cover up Iran’s shooting down a Ukrainian passenger jet—killing 176 people—then tardily admitted it. Cities all over Iran witnessed spontaneous demonstrations with crowds chanting, “America is not our enemy,” ripping down posters of Soleimani, and calling for death to the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.