RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://dianebederman.com/russia-ukraine-look-over-there-but-wait-shanghai/

While our attention has been drawn to Russia/Ukraine: look over there! 24/7, Covid is back.  Shanghai is under assault.  On China’s central coast, Shanghai is the country’s biggest city and a global financial hub. Let me repeat, Shanghai is a global financial hub and major port – as in supply chain. To put it simply, Shanghai is one of only four port-cities in the world to be categorized as a large-port Megacity, due to its high volumes of port traffic and large urban population. One would think it would be important to pay attention when a major port city…in China…is shut down. But we are overwhelmed by news from Ukraine. There are 44 million people in the entire country of Ukraine – or there were before the war. There is an expectation that 8 million Ukrainians will flee. There are 26 million people in the city of Shanghai. We care about the people in Ukraine but not in Shanghai – why is that? We are watching people starve and cruelty to animals and don’t seem to care.

Right now, anyone with a positive Covid result is held in an isolation centre, some of which have been newly created from converted gymnasiums and exhibition halls. Authorities have installed fences to restrict the population’s movement. Green barriers have appeared without warning outside buildings where those inside are forbidden from leaving.  There are metal barriers in multiple districts to block off small streets and entrances to apartment complexes

Oh, like a ghetto, but not.

If that isn’t good enough, Shanghai city officials said infected patients and close contacts will be transferred to government-run centralized quarantine. Can’t begin to imagine how Trudeau would handle this in Canada!

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18434/turkey-aggression-greece-airspace

Turkish military aircraft violated Greek airspace 90 times in one day, on April 15, and conducted three overflights of inhabited Greek islands, according to Greek media.

Turkish aircraft have, in fact, been violating Greek airspace almost non-stop since the beginning of the year. In fact, Turkey — both its government and political opposition — has for years openly been threatening to capture Greek islands in the Aegean Sea…. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine seems to offer a convenient precedent for Turkey to increase its military aggression against Greece.

“Once again we wish to reiterate that sovereignty over the islands, islets and rocks of the Aegean was ceded to Greece definitively and unconditionally by the above Treaties and any interpretation against the letter or spirit of these fundamental Treaties would amount to an unauthorized attempt to unilaterally review and modify them.” — Greece’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Maria Theofili.

The legal status of the Greek islands in the Aegean is clear: The Treaty of Lausanne set the borders of Turkey and Greece, with the exception of the then-Italian occupied Dodecanese islands that reunited with Greece in 1947 following the signing of the Paris Peace Treaty between Italy and the World War II Allies.

Greek sovereignty over those islands is stipulated by international conventions: The 1923 Lausanne Treaty, the 1936 Montreux Treaty, and the 1947 Paris Treaty.

Sadly, Turkey appears to have an expansionist agenda that has a centuries-long history and that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has articulated.

Greece does not have such an agenda. Greece has not been busy invading or threatening its neighbors or other nations in the Middle East.

Turkey, however, invaded northern Cyprus in 1974, forcibly displaced the Greek Christians living there, and has been maneuvering to acquire the rest. In 2018, Turkey also invaded northern Syria and, using jihadist paramilitary forces, has been occupying the region ever since.

While the world has been distracted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Turkey, a member of the NATO alliance, has been busy harassing another NATO member, its Western neighbor, Greece.

Turkish military aircraft violated Greek airspace 90 times in one day, on April 15, and conducted three overflights of inhabited Greek islands, according to Greek media.