RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17451/iran-record-rouhani

During Rouhani’s tenure, thousands of people were executed, including women and children. In its 2019 global review of the death penalty, Amnesty International stated: “Iran retained its place as the world’s second-most prolific executioner after China.”

In total, according to official estimates of the Iranian regime, more than 4,000 people were executed in Rouahni’s two-term presidency: an average of 10 executions a week for eight years.

Rouhani’s two terms as President taught many Iranians that the idea of moderates in the Iranian regime is laughable and a myth. Many chants became popular in Iran for the first time, such as “Reformist, hardliner, the game is now over”, “Death to Rouhani,” “Shame on you Khamenei, step down from power,” and “Death to the Islamic Republic.”

The Biden administration must not lift sanctions against the Iranian regime and should immediately halt all negotiations with Rouhani’s administration. It has presided over unspeakable human rights violations; record-setting executions of men, women and children; suppression of Christians and other minorities, and a brutal crackdown on its population. If a country does not treat its own people well, why would it treat its neighbors any better?

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has long been labeled in the West a “moderate” or “diplomatic sheikh” who will change the Iranian regime for the better. The Obama administration reached a deal with the Rouhani’s administration and lifted sanctions against the Iranian regime; and now the Biden administration is forging ahead to revive former President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Rouhani before he leaves office.

Here, for perusal, are the eight-years of records of the so-called moderate President of Iran.

In his first term of presidency, beginning in 2015, Rouhani sealed the nuclear deal — which, incidentally, Iran never signed — with the Obama administration. As a result of the deal, both the United Nations’ four rounds of sanctions and US sanctions against the Iran’s regime were swiftly lifted and the ruling mullahs joined the global financial system. Billions of dollars flew into the regime’s treasury.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/06/world-leaders-must-demand-answers-on-covid-19-origins/

G7 leaders should use their collective power to demand answers from the Chinese Communist Party on the coronavirus.

After a year and a half of stonewalling, destruction of evidence, and lies by the Chinese government, a growing chorus of international opinion is demanding a full and transparent investigation into the origins of COVID-19. As G7 leaders gather in Cornwall this weekend for the annual summit, they have the opportunity — and arguably an obligation — to use their collective power to demand answers from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and prevent future pandemics.

Early in 2020, a three-line whip was essentially imposed across the scientific, public-health, and political establishments, holding that the novel coronavirus likely emerged through zoonotic transfer. Despite the many scientific and circumstantial holes in this explanation, the alternative hypothesis that COVID-19 may have spread via a lab accident from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) — located at the epicenter of the initial outbreak — was dismissed as a fringe theory. The zoonotic hypothesis also happened to be the preferred explanation of the CCP, which vigorously pushed this narrative while silencing its scientists, destroying evidence, and stage-managing the World Health Organization (WHO) investigation.

Now that an increasing number of scientists, reporters, and political figures are finally taking the lab-leak hypothesis seriously, elected leaders owe their citizens answers about the who, when, where, how, and why of the origins of COVID-19.

The G7 countries should launch a joint investigation into the origins of the virus to complement the ongoing Five Eyes inquiries. Countries such as Japan, Germany, France, and Italy with world-class intelligence services and medical-research institutions can share the benefits of their expertise and their insights on China. France’s cooperation is particularly important. After all, the French built the BSL-4 laboratory for advanced pathogenetic research on viruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Undoubtedly, the French know many of the most sensitive secrets regarding this facility and the personnel inside the WIV, with whom they previously collaborated, and can do a great deal to help solve this mystery.

https://asiatimes.com/2021/06/china-can-help-us-out-of-its-inflation-trap/

NEW YORK – “Goods produced by China’s hundreds of millions of workers are a strong anchor for stabilizing global inflation” read the banner headline at China’s “Observer” (guancha.cn) website June 10, quoting People’s Bank of China official Guo Shuqing, the Communist Party representative at the central bank.

The “Observer” site frequently floats trial balloons for China’s top policymakers.

Guo dismissed the reassurances of Western central bankers and offered an alarming assessment of inflation risk: “Inflation is coming as scheduled. Moreover, the magnitude is higher than the expectations of central bankers in the United States and Europe, and the duration of inflation does not seem to be as short as many experts predict.”

He added, “When fiscal expenditures are already largely supported by the central bank’s printing of money, it is like an airplane entering tailspin, and it is difficult to pull out of the dive. Before 2008, the Fed’s balance sheet was only more than US$800 billion, and now it is nearly $8 trillion, and the ratio of US federal debt to GDP has surpassed the highest record created during World War II.”

Nonetheless, Guo argued, China can help: “For a considerable period of time, China has supplied about half of the world’s finished goods, and on the whole has not increased export prices, laying a solid foundation for global epidemic prevention and control, and for economic recovery. If the large amounts of currency issued by the most developed countries have been the driving force for global inflation, then the goods produced by China’s hundreds of millions of workers are the anchor for stabilizing global inflation.”

Beijing is sending a message to Washington: You have a big problem with inflation, and we can help – in return for other consideration. China and the United States had a tacit deal during the 2000s: You buy our goods, and we invest the proceeds in US Treasury securities. That kept US interest rates artificially low during the housing bubble years.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-new-power-play-more-control-of-tech-companies-troves-of-data-11623470478?mod=hp_lead_pos7

Shortly after rising to power in late 2012, Xi Jinping made his first company visit in his new job as China’s Communist Party chief, to Tencent Holdings Ltd. There, he raised a topic that has become both an opportunity and a challenge for his rule: the vast troves of personal data being gathered by the country’s technology companies.

Mr. Xi complimented Tencent’s founder, Pony Ma, on the way the company was accumulating information from millions of users, and harnessing that data to drive innovation. He also suggested that data would be useful to Beijing.

“You have the most sufficient data, then you can make the most objective and accurate analysis,” he told Mr. Ma, according to state media accounts. “The suggestions to the government in this regard are very valuable.”

More than eight years later, those suggestions are becoming demands. The government is now calling on big tech companies like Tencent, online retailing giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and TikTok owner ByteDance Ltd. to open up the data they collect from social media, e-commerce and other businesses, according to official documents and interviews with people involved in policy-making.

The complex new web of laws and regulations around sharing digital records is being driven by the huge growth in data held by China’s tech giants—and a belief that the government should be able to access it. The efforts are also part of Mr. Xi’s quest to rein in the increasingly powerful tech sector, which has pushed back on some of Beijing’s previous data-sharing efforts. The most recent law, passed Thursday, will make it harder for companies to resist such requests.

China’s leaders worry that the country’s tech giants could be using their extensive personal and corporate digital records to build alternative power centers in the one-party state. That concern led Mr. Xi to halt a planned initial public offering by Jack Ma’s financial-technology behemoth Ant Group Co. late last year.

Chinese government entities involved in the effort to regulate data, including the State Council and the Cyberspace Administration of China, didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Beijing is also intensifying the pressure on foreign firms operating in China to keep records gathered from local customers inside the country, so the government has more authority over the records. Western companies have long complained such “data-localization” requirements could stifle innovation in their global operations or enable Chinese authorities to steal their proprietary information.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17335/china-rare-earth-materials

“[I]t is as if the Middle East not only sat on most of the world’s oil but also, almost exclusively, refined it and then made products out of it,” wrote The Economist in 2019.

It is not that rare earth materials do not exist outside of China, although it sits on the largest quantity: approximately 30-40% of all known rare earth deposits. Rather, extracting the materials is a difficult and highly polluting process that China was willing to take on…. “making it practically impossible for competing companies outside China to get a foothold,” according to the Danish Institute for International Studies.

China’s de facto monopoly forms an acute problem: international reliance on them could hamper vital industries and national security at a time of maximum competition between China and the US.

In February, the Financial Times reported that China was looking into export curbs on rare earth materials that are key to the US defense industry, such as the F-35. “The government wants to know if the US may have trouble making F-35 fighter jets if China imposes an export ban.” — Chinese government adviser to the Financial Times.

On April 16, however, after elections that were de facto a referendum on the Chinese plans to mine not just for rare earth materials, but also for uranium, a new Greenland government came to power, which vowed that it “will do everything we can to stop the Kvanefjeld project.” Greenland’s new government may impact not only China’s hopes for mining there, but also those of other countries hoping to break free of the rare earth dependency on China.

The London-based Polar Research and Policy Initiative, recommended in March that the “Five Eyes” alliance, an intelligence-sharing group comprised of Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand and the United States, set its sights on Greenland’s rare earths.

Wind turbines, solar panels and electric vehicles all rely on rare earth materials and China has a head start that can be measured in decades, when it comes to producing the various products of which they form a crucial part: More than 60% of the world’s solar panels… are made in China….

There is also a human rights aspect to the issue: Polysilicon is produced in Xinjiang, where China is accused of using forced labor in the production chains, because — ironically — heat above 1,000 degrees Celsius is required to make the material, and Xinjiang has an abundance of cheap coal power.

“It will cost us more than the Chinese to produce solar cells,” said Tom Duesterberg, former Commerce Department assistant secretary under President George H.W. Bush. “We could agree to pay that price, but it will be more expensive and take a long time. If tensions get bad with China, they’ve proven in the past that they are willing to cut off supplies.”

China is also the world’s largest producer of electric vehicles. “China is projected to produce around 13 million battery electric vehicles… by 2023, more than any other nation in the world. China’s estimated production level is also anticipated to exceed the combined output of other large markets, including the United States…. Biden’s plan could therefore end up boosting China’s green energy industry even more.

“The Middle East has oil, China has rare earths”, Deng Xiaoping said in 1992. Nearly three decades later, the world is almost completely dependent on China for rare earth materials. They constitute key elements in large swaths of modern technology from consumer electronics to military equipment and green technology: Mobile phones, computers, fighter jets, guided missiles, solar panels, wind turbines and electric vehicles, among others. While demand is soaring, China is virtually their worldwide exclusive producer. “To extend Mr Deng’s comparison, it is as if the Middle East not only sat on most of the world’s oil but also, almost exclusively, refined it and then made products out of it,” wrote The Economist in 2019.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17435/turkey-erdogan-antisemitism

“Anywhere which was connected with these people or with these prophets who were all Muslims becomes a Muslim territory…. So any place like this [Israel] had to be freed…. had to be liberated. So, Islam appeared… from their point of view — as a liberator. And therefore, there is no Islamic occupation…. So, there is no Islamic occupation. There is only Islamic liberation.” — Moshe Sharon, Professor Emeritus of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, YouTube, September 10, 2015.

Such accusations are, of course, totally false, but imagine how many ignorant people worldwide they infect with violent Jew-hatred.

In reality, both Muslim Arabs and Ottomans violently invaded Jerusalem and remained occupiers there for centuries.

What actually needs to be condemned is Hamas’s terrorism. It is Hamas that aims to destroy Israel, that commits war crimes, and that attempts genocide… as seen, for example, in Article 7 of the Hamas Charter. Moreover, it is Hamas that harms its own people and puts them in danger, and uses them as human shields: an additional war crime. Hamas has made no secret of advocating the use of civilians as human shields.

Erdogan’s offer to change the administration of Jerusalem is an open assault on the sovereignty and security of Israel. The three religions are already present and enjoy religious liberty in Jerusalem, unlike the tiny, dying non-Muslim community in Turkey…. Erdogan also issued a threat — his word — to Jerusalem if he does not get his way….

A major reason for this Jew-hatred appears to be irresponsible leaders who repeat hateful propaganda while remaining completely blind to, or proud of, their own crimes.

As Hamas indiscriminately bombed Israeli cities from May 11 to May 17, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan delivered a speech in Ankara in which he targeted both Israel and Jews with antisemitic slurs. Erdogan disseminated countless falsehoods that misinformed the Turkish public about Israel, the Jewish people, Gaza, and other issues — all the while fanning the flames of antisemitism.

In discussing the Islamic history of Jerusalem, where the Jews were living for more than a thousand years before Islam even appeared with Mohammad (c. 570-632) — and scooping up ancient Jewish leaders on the way:

“Jerusalem… is a region that hosts the most ancient settlements of humanity. Many prophets who were also our prophets, from Prophet Abraham to Prophet David and Prophet Solomon, lived in these lands and left their marks on these lands.”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/06/canada-fight-far-right-groups-after-terrorist-christine-douglass-williams/

Four members of a London, Ontario Muslim family were run over and killed by a pickup truck last Sunday evening, while out on a leisurely walk. The youngest, a 9-year-old boy, suffered serious but non-life-threatening injuries. Police Chief Steve Williams concluded “We believe the victims were targeted because of their Islamic faith,” sparking national fury over a hate-driven act that left a nation stunned and empathetic.

The fact that five members of a family, comprising three generations, could be run over in this horrific manner because of their faith strikes at the core of civilization, but let’s be clear: Western civilization — where all human life is valued.

What is troubling about the reaction to this case is the speedy politicization of it, revealing just how low politicians are willing to stoop to exploit a profound tragedy for their own agendas. Indeed, Prime Minster Justin Trudeau quickly vowed to hunt down what he deemed to be “far right” groups — a “project” that he started a long time ago. What is highly disturbing is that Trudeau has absolutely zero evidence regarding the political leanings of  20-year-old Nathaniel Veltman — who has been charged with four counts of murder and one of attempted murder.

Reuters reported that Veltman isn’t known to belong to any hate group. The local mayor, meanwhile, called the deaths “mass murder, perpetrated against Muslims,” casting Canada as a country where Muslims are in danger everywhere.

This tragedy highlighted a troubling quality about some members of Canada’s leadership — who didn’t hesitate to manipulate the tragedy, thus harnessing a climate of mob rule and bypassing due process. From front-line police “commentary” right up to the Prime Minister — who is using this tragedy to continue hunting down “far right” groups — a pattern is now set in motion, and it will be surely exploited further by special interest lobbies comprising the red-green axis. 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/refugee-camp-for-families-of-islamic-state-fighters-nourishes-insurgency-11623254778?mod=hp_lead_pos5

The United Nations warned last year that Islamic State is trying to use al-Hol escapees to develop cells in Europe.

AL-HOL, Syria—A refugee camp set up to shelter women and children after the defeat of Islamic State has instead turned into a mini-caliphate itself, where female leaders nurture the group’s violent ideology and run money-making schemes that help keep the insurgency alive outside the razor wire.

Authorities have recorded more than 40 murders, at least 10 of them beheadings, in the 736-acre camp since the start of the year. Most of the victims were accused by Islamic State of collaborating with camp authorities, according to the Rojava Information Center, an independent volunteer-staffed research organization based in northeast Syria.

Late last year, an Iraqi woman was strangled in front of her children with an electric wire after she posted a video on Instagram of herself dancing in her tent, an activity forbidden under the strict Islamist doctrine imposed by the group, say people in contact with al-Hol prisoners. On March 20, another 18-year-old woman, also Iraqi, was shot dead after being accused of being an informant, these people said.

The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, a Kurdish-led militia responsible for guarding al-Hol, say they lack the resources to properly secure the camp, which has grown into a small city of more than 62,000. Most Western nations have refused to systematically repatriate citizens who moved to Syria during Islamic State’s rise and were trapped there after its collapse.

What remains of Islamic State is making the best of the international stalemate. In this slum-like camp dubbed “Europe’s Guantanamo,” the group enforces its hard-line version of Islam, exfiltrates some detainees to its strongholds in Syria and takes a cut on the millions of dollars raised by sympathizers to free them, according to a recent United Nations report.

“Everyone in the camp wants to get out,” said Amal Bilifad, a Moroccan mother who says she unwittingly followed her husband to Syria and tried in vain to flee the self-declared caliphate after he was killed in an airstrike.

In recent months, fugitives from al-Hol have made it back to Sweden, the Netherlands, Finland and Belgium, according to judicial records and counterterrorism officials.

Part of the difficulty in controlling the camp lies in its complex structure. It is both a detention facility and a haven for people who were displaced by the conflict and cannot return home. Its biggest section is made up of Iraqi families including men, almost half of the residents, closely followed by a separate area made up of Syrians.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17452/appeasing-iran-mullahs

The Arabs clearly see what the Biden administration, Britain, Germany and France are refusing to see — that Iran has ambitions not only to acquire a nuclear bomb, but also aggressively to export its “Islamic revolution” and terrorism on a global scale.

It is also important to note that one of the missions of Quds Force is to “liberate Jerusalem and Palestine,” a euphemism for the elimination of Israel.

“The Quds Force is in Yemen to launch attacks on Mecca and Medina and their surroundings [in Saudi Arabia]. The goal of the mullahs in Tehran is to attack Muslims and inflict the greatest possible harm on them.” — Walid Al-Ghamidi, Saudi writer, YouTube, June 5, 2021.

“The Houthi’s missiles and drones nearly hit the holy sites in Mecca and Medina. How can Iran invest in the bombing of Saudi Arabia while claiming… that it seeks to liberate Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa Mosque? Iran’s claim to support Islamic holy sites is not related to any religious beliefs. It is related to regional ambitions, expansionist dreams, and striving to export the Iranian revolution to various countries in the region.” — Mohammed Hassan Mufti, Saudi author, Okaz, June 3, 2021.

“There is no dispute among experts and political analysts that Iran is a direct cause of the complete destruction of at least four Arab countries”: Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen. — Mohammed Hassan Mufti, Okaz, June 3, 2021.

“America’s entry into the Iranian nuclear agreement will…. enable the mullahs to obtain nuclear weapons and more than a billion dollars. Some of the money will go to Iran’s agents in the region.” — Bader bin Saud, Saudi columnist, Okaz, May 24, 2021.

“Does Iran want to liberate Jerusalem and give it to the Palestinians, or does it want to add it to the group of Arab capitals it occupies, such as Damascus, Baghdad, Beirut and Sana’a?” — Faisal Al-Qassem, prominent Syrian writer and journalist, Al-Quds Al-Arabi, May 14, 2021.

Qassem also pointed out that some commentators have come to prefer keeping Jerusalem under Israeli control over its liberation by Iran: “Look at the capitals occupied by Iran: Baghdad has become, according to the United Nations, the dirtiest capital in the world, while Beirut has become the largest dumpster in the Middle East. As for Damascus, it turned into a ruin, while Sana’a returned to the Middle Ages.” — Faisal Al-Qassem, quoting an Arab in Al-Quds Al-Arabi, May 14, 2021.

“Jerusalem is not in the mind of the regime. Rather, what concerns Iran is killing Arabs and occupying their countries.” — Dr. Bahera Al-Sheikhli, Iraqi author, Al-Arab, May 21, 2021.

“The truth is that Iran established the Quds Force to occupy Arab countries, recruit Arab traitors into terrorist organizations to overthrow Arab governments, and threaten Arab national security.” — Abdel Munim Ibrahim, Emirati political analyst, Akhbar Al-Khaleej, May 12, 2021.

The Arabs, however, are sending a very different message to the Biden administration and other Western powers: Appeasing Iran by reviving the nuclear deal, lifting sanctions or giving it money will only assist the Iranian regime in perpetrating more crimes and increasing instability and terrorism in the region.

Iran is continuing to exploit the Palestinian issue to promote its expansionist schemes in the Middle East and meddle in the internal affairs of Arab countries, including Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and Bahrain.