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https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2021/11/21/china-loses-control-of-the-peng-shuai-narrative-as-the-world-demands-answers-n1535039

Peng Shuai, a world-class tennis player and Grand Slam doubles champion, is in the custody of the Chinese Communist government, and the world is demanding to know where she is.

Peng made serious and credible allegations of sexual assault against a high-ranking Chinese government official. The assault allegedly occurred three years ago. The online accusation was scrubbed, Peng was seized, and no one, except Communist lackeys in their state-controlled media, has seen or heard from her since she disappeared two weeks ago.

Nothing is guaranteed to make the Chinese Communists angrier than criticism of their policy of stifling internal dissent. Now, the entire world — not just the tennis community — has rallied to Peng’s cause.

The Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) has promised to cancel all upcoming tournaments in China unless the Chinese show the world proof of life — and health. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is also mulling its options. China is scheduled to host the Winter Olympics this February and, while it’s extremely unlikely they would pull the event from Beijing, some kind of sanctions against Chinese athletes may be in the offing.

“If that’s not resolved in a sensible way very soon, it may spin out of control,” one IOC member told Reuters on Friday “Whether that escalates to a cessation of the Olympic Games, I doubt it. But you never know.”

Clearly, China has lost control of the narrative about Peng and will have a very difficult time maintaining its story. And if this is the best they have, they’re going to need some help.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/11/couple-flogged-publicly-extramarital-affair-sharia-ashlyn-davis/

A man and a woman in Indonesia’s Banda Aceh city, on Wednesday, November 10, were given 17 lashes publicly for having an extramarital affair, which is a moral offense as per Sharia, which is enforced in the city. The man and the woman were individually brought into the area, which is features a gallery with rows of seats arranged to accommodate an audience that can witness this punishment. The accused were made to bow and then taken to a red carpet for the execution of the punishment. The Algojo, a Sharia police officer designated to carry out corporal punishments, dressed from head to toe in a brown robe with a white stripe running across it, with just two holes for his eyes, chose from three canes provided to strike the offenders.

The audience in the gallery was recording the punishment session. The woman was covered in a while burqa and wore a face mask for Covid-19 protocols. However, she dropped on the floor after being struck a few times, and was attended by the policemen and women standing nearby. The man, on the other hand, stood straight looking at the audience during his turn.

Though flogging is not an accepted means of punishment in Indonesia, it is still practiced widely and routinely in the ultra-conservative province Aceh; Banda Aceh is the capital city of Aceh. The province had been suffering from a separatist insurgency for many years. To quell the political unrest, the central government of Indonesia in 2001 granted Aceh provincial status. It was during this time that Aceh adopted the Islamic law of Sharia as the governing law of the province. Sharia would be implemented for any “crime” for which there was no provision in the secular penal code, for actions that went against the rules of Islam.

Any moral offense, such as like homosexuality, gambling, drinking alcohol, closeness between people of the opposite gender if not related or married, or public display of affection is eligible to be tried under Sharia.

Though in 2018, the Aceh Provincial Government in Indonesia decided to cease public flogging and both men and women sentenced to flogging would receive their punishment within the four walls of a prison, flogging in full public view continues to be practiced, and people gather to witness this brutality with great enthusiasm as well.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17954/china-olympics

The disappearance of tennis star Peng Shuai this month has led many around the world to question the holding of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. The Games are scheduled to begin February 4.

It is now time for the world to face the reality of the Communist Party of China and the horrific system it has constructed. There is only one correct choice: Move the Games.

[T]he regime will make Peng publicly retract accusations or destroy her. The individual means nothing in China’s current system. Too many times state television has aired ghastly confessions of obviously worn-down individuals.

There are many reasons to boycott or move the Olympics from Beijing…. Of course, no ruling group that organizes rape, slavery, mass detention, torture, killings, and organ harvesting should be permitted, among other things, to host international sporting events.

The International Olympic Committee maintains these atrocities are none of its business. Yet the protection of athletes is. Peng’s detention tells us athletes will not be safe in China. The Games, after all, are first and foremost about the competitors, and their personal safety must be the primary concern.

Even at this late date, it is time to boycott or move the Games from China.

The disappearance of tennis star Peng Shuai this month has led many around the world to question the holding of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. The Games are scheduled to begin February 4.

Now, only the morally bankrupt could think it is a good idea to allow the hostage-taking, rapist-protecting, genocide-committing Chinese regime to host this competition.

It is now time for the world to face the reality of the Communist Party of China and the horrific system it has constructed. There is only one correct choice: Move the Games.

For decades, people overlooked the great crimes of Chinese communism because they had hope that it would, over time, evolve and become benign. When “reformer” Deng Xiaoping shoved aside Hua Guofeng, Mao Zedong’s chosen successor, and engineered at the end of 1978 the historic Third Plenum, outsiders thought they were seeing a new—and far superior—”New China.”

In fact, as the Communist Party embarked on gaige kaifang—the policy of “reform and opening up”—the regime both moderated its foreign policy and relaxed or eliminated totalitarian social controls. Then, optimism ruled.

But not now. The current ruler has reversed trends that many outsiders—as well as the Chinese people themselves—welcomed. The ruling group, never benevolent, has become even more monstrous under Xi Jinping.

Enter Ms. Peng, sporting hero and darling of the Chinese public. On November 2, she posted on Weibo, often called China’s Twitter, an accusation that Zhang Gaoli, aided by his wife, pressured her into providing sex.

The charge was unprecedented in the history of the People’s Republic of China. Zhang was once a senior leader, a vice premier who also served from 2012 to 2017 on the Communist Party’s Politburo Standing Committee, the highest ruling body in the country.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17955/wounds-russia-knife

The “interim solution” imposed by Russia denies Azerbaijan control of the enclave while preventing its ethnic Armenian population to develop working state structures. In other words, the wound remains open with a Russian knife in it that could be turned anytime Moscow wished.

Is the “situation” as developed in Transcaucasia a model of Russian behavior in the international arena?

Several examples could be cited in support of a “yes” answer.

By keeping all those nations in a state of crisis with their neighbors, Putin achieves one of his two geostrategic goals: preventing NATO expansion to Eastern Europe, Transcaucasia and Central Asia. Because no country in conflict with its neighbors would be allowed to join the US-led coalition, it is important for Russia to keep all those wounds open with his knife in them.

With the US behaving strangely for the past five years or so and the EU crippled by Brexit, the Western democracies have not been able to develop a coherent analysis of the Russian challenge let alone shape a policy to deal with it. Sending a small number of American or British troops to the Baltic republics and Poland may provide some beguiling TV news footage while huffing and puffing about sanctions could be seen as a sign of confusion rather than a strategy to stand against a de-stabilizing power.

One school of thoughts in Western policy-making circles is to let Putin choke on the morsels such as Syria, Libya, Iran, Donetsk, Transcaucasia and Belarus that he has bitten but cannot chew let alone digest. That may sound clever in pseudo-Machiavellian terms but could be disastrous in terms of big power politics.

It was supposed to be a five-year “breathing space” in which two belligerent neighbors would resolve their disputes and shape a durable peace with help from their big altruistic neighbor.

And yet, just months after the “good news” was spread by all concerned, Armenia and Azerbaijan have reignited their border war in Transcaucasia with Russian troops keeping a low profile.

www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17949/iran-mullahs-concessions

The Biden administration has already caved in to the mullahs’ demands. It announced not only that it is willing to lift nuclear-related sanctions, but also that it is considering lifting non-nuclear related sanctions. The administration also proceeded to revoke the designation of the Houthis, an Iran-backed terror group, as an officially-designated terrorist organization.

“The Biden administration appears to be using loopholes when dealing with the Iranian regime…. If the Biden administration is involved in transferring funds to Iran, Congress and the American people must be informed. Biden administration officials continue to deflect and refuse to answer questions from members of Congress regarding this issue. I want answers. ” — U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil, March 25, 2021.

The Biden administration and the EU would do well to remember that with every concession they give the Islamic Republic, they are not furthering peace in the region; they are instead empowering and emboldening a rapacious regime.

The ruling mullahs of Iran are maneuvering towards obtaining major concessions from the Biden administrations and the EU3 (France, Germany and the United Kingdom) during the upcoming nuclear talks in Vienna on November 29.

The Iranian regime wants the Biden administration to remove all sanctions that were imposed on Tehran during the Trump administration — many of which are not even linked to Iran’s nuclear program. Instead, they are related to the Iranian regime’s terrorist activities and human rights violations.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17948/spain-migration-crisis-spirals-out-of-control

“Guys, listen, most of you want to emigrate. Follow this plan: we need 40 volunteers. All the Brooklyn guys who book a flight to Turkey will fly over Spain. One of you will activate the GPS and when the plane approaches Spain you will begin to scream and feign an illness. The stewardess will come and ask for patience until the plane arrives in Turkey. At this moment the others begin to protest and claim that the passenger is going to die…If everyone shows sympathy for the sick passenger, the plane will make an emergency landing in Spain to protect the reputation of the company and to free itself of responsibility.” — A plot by a Moroccan Facebook group to illegally enter Spain, as reported by El Mundo and the Spanish news agency EFE, November 7, 2021

The plot, months in the making and unmatched in audacity, has demonstrated that commandeering airliners is a cheaper and safer way to reach Europe than paying people smugglers thousands of euros for perilous sea crossings.

“Obviously, what can be done with this data is to ignore it and let the problem fester, which is what has been done so far. The last straw is that in Spain they insult you by calling you ‘xenophobic’ and ‘racist’ for the mere fact of pointing out a problem revealed by the official statistics. What they are trying to censor is not a political position, but reality.” — Elentir, blogger, outono.net/elentir, November 6, 2021

As in other parts of Europe, migrant crime in Spain is spiraling beyond the capacity of law enforcement to contain the violence. Migrant crimes are rarely reported by national news outlets, but local newspapers show that migrant criminality is a nationwide problem. Many migrants have criminal records but are repeatedly released back onto the streets by lenient judges. Migrant criminals are rarely deported; many are unable or unwilling to integrate into Spanish society, so the cycle of crime continues apace.

“We say that the requirements to obtain nationality must be toughened because Spanish nationality is a treasure that we are not willing to give away to those who do not respect it and do not deserve it.” — Vox President Santiago Abascal, November 6, 2021

Prosecutors in Spain have charged a dozen North African migrants with sedition for illegally entering the country by forcing a commercial airliner to land on Spanish territory.

The plot, months in the making and unmatched in audacity, has demonstrated that commandeering airliners is a cheaper and safer way to reach Europe than paying people smugglers thousands of euros for perilous sea crossings.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17944/china-military-modernization

“[W]e are being more effectively challenged militarily today than at any…any other time in our history.” — US Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, September 20, 2021.

China aims to “complete national defense and military modernization by 2035.” — Jamestown.org, March 26, 2021

China’s modernization of its military is taking place on all levels.

“The PLA [People’s Liberation Army] … seeks a force capable of winning a number of high-end regional conflicts, including the forcible unification of Taiwan, while dissuading, deterring, or defeating third-party military intervention.” — Lieutenant General Scott Berrier, Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, before the Senate US Armed Services Committee, April 26, 2021.

“Hypersonic weapons, a full range of anti-satellite systems, plus cyber, electronic warfare, and challenging air to air missiles are all part of the growing inventory of Chinese capabilities.” — US Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, September 20, 2021.

“In 2019, the private PRC-based company Ziyan UAV exhibited armed swarming drones….. During the past five years, China has made achievements in AI-enabled unmanned surface vessels, which China plans to use to patrol and bolster its territorial claims in the South China Sea.” — The Pentagon, Annual 2020 Report to Congress on the Chinese military.

“We’re not a decade ahead.” — Eric Schmidt, former executive chairman and CEO of Google and the chairman of the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, National Defense Magazine, October 30, 2020.

“Since 2010, I have been pounding the drum about how serious a threat the People’s Republic of China’s military modernization program is to the ability of the United States to project power into the Indo Pacific, and more broadly our ability to protect our interests and values around the world…. While America is still the dominant military power on the planet, we are being more effectively challenged militarily today than at any…any other time in our history.” These were the words of US Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall at the Air Force Association’s Air, Space & Cyber Convention on September 20.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17865/anne-marie-waters

Anne Marie Dorothy Waters is a politician and activist in the United Kingdom. She founded and leads the For Britain Party.

“We live in a UK where free speech is a thing of the past, our media is merely a mouthpiece of government diktats, and where decent people are demonized and smeared for holding informed opinions. We are in a Britain that resembles the communist Soviet Union: fear, censorship, excessive government control.”

“Please do not forget that many Muslims, especially women and children, are the victims, as well. Those people are entirely unrepresented.”

“We do not want to ‘Build Back Better’ as the globalists keep demanding; we want to Bring Back Britain.”

“The political and media elite are entirely wedded to the global project of bringing down nation-states. This cannot be done without mass migration.”

“We are a society of science, and reason, and evidence, and just as we achieve that, we open to the door to medievalism and are catapulted back in time. Secularism and free speech, equal rights between the sexes, the protection of children, all of this is being sacrifice for ‘political correctness'”.

“Most of these people are coming here illegally and this is simply allowed to take place while we watch. What is even harder to take is how these illegal immigrants are elevated above the native population. There are thousands of homeless British people in the UK, and yet illegal immigrants are housed in hotels until permanent accommodation is provided to them. No such relief or help is available to homeless Britons.”

“Now that we are about to receive a massive influx of Afghans, some of whom are already responsible for crimes throughout Europe, there are plans in place to give them homes, medical care, training and employment, and even free university attendance. Britons must pay thousands of pounds per year per year to attend university. It is a profound injustice.”

“White children are actively taught that they are racists, colonisers and oppressors.”

“First and foremost, we must stop the immigration. We cannot deal with these problems while the borders are still open…. The rights of terrorists and rapists are considered more important than the safety of the British public….We must scrap all ‘hate speech’ laws and allow our citizens to speak freely. We must enact laws that prevent the press smearing political candidates as ‘fascists’ for daring to tell the truth….We must… deport those who engage in honour violence, FGM, or child marriage… It is also absolutely essential that all of those who express support for jihad, who support terrorists, or who want sharia law, and who are not British citizens, are deported from our country…. These steps are just the beginning but if we were to take them, we would be in a completely different place. The world would no longer see Britain as a soft touch or a hub of jihad.”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17941/france-nationalism-zemmour

Like Macron five years ago, Zemmour is seen as the outsider opposed to incompetent and corrupt insiders.

He seems unaware of the difference between American “secularism,” in which the state sees itself as protector of all religions, and the French laïcité in which the state regards all religions as potential or actual threats.

The problem that France faces comes from political groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, the Salafist groups, Khomeinist circles and home-grown militants radicalized through the Internet.

Although the next French presidential election is months away, the way the media in Paris along with French chattering classes are behaving, one might think that we are on the eve of polling day.

Turn on any TV channel and open any newspaper and you are likely to run into oodles of speculation about the journey to the Élysée Palace.

One reason may be even the main one, for this premature interest is a 63-year old journalist who has cast himself as a modern version of the Prophet Jeremiah to depict gloom and forecasting doom for French democracy.

The man in question is Éric Zemmour, who has been lurking on the margins of French journalism, always in minor roles for almost three decades and, yet, is now entering as the rising star of French politics on the right or, as his enemies claim, the far right.