RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/07/13/cuba-the-collapse-of-another-socialist-utopia-lets-hope-so/

Like an unwatched pot suddenly violently boiling over, Havana and other cities have erupted in defiant protests by Cubans fed up with living in their perpetually depressed tropical police state. True to form, the Castroite regime has already reflexively cracked down on the protests with brutality.

Cubans weary of being treated like animals without rights took to the streets, shouting “Freedom!” “Down with the dictatorship,” and, most pointedly, “Down with communism!” In some cases, protesters carried American flags. This was not an isolated demonstration: According to the Spanish-language data site Inventario, some 63 cities and towns were roiled by demonstrations on Sunday through early Monday.

Here in the U.S., some on the left initially tried to portray this as Cubans being upset over COVID-19 infections and a lack of vaccines. A State Department spokesperson styled it as Cubans “exercising their right to peaceful assembly … about rising COVID cases/deaths & medicine shortages.”

“We call for calm and condemn any violence,” Julie Chung, acting assistant secretary for the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, tweeted Sunday.

Nice try. To begin with, Cubans don’t have a “right to peaceful assembly,” nor any other real enforceable rights. All their rights depend on the government’s willingness to grant them. As for the demonstrations, the reasons plainly went well beyond a mere “medicine shortage.” Watch videos: You’ll see it has nothing to do with COVID-19.

Saying we “condemn any violence” is a joke. The Cuban people have lived under perpetual threat of actual violence committed by the Communist regime for 62 years.

In fact, the demonstrations were an outpouring of rage and disgust with the ongoing failures of communist rule. Videos of average Cubans standing in front of Communist Party headquarters, chanting “Cuba isn’t yours” and calling for President Miguel Diaz-Canel to step down, shows they aren’t afraid.

Cuba’s government responded as expected: “The communist dictatorship … started cracking down on the protests, allegedly inflicting violence on the unarmed protesters and cutting off internet access,” wrote the Daily Wire.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17555/palestinian-terrorism-jew-hate

For decades, most articles on the Middle East have portrayed Israel in a negative light, not as a democracy under constant threat. Willfully or not, they promote Jew-hate. Hamas is often described as a “Palestinian militant group,” almost never as a terrorist organization.

Israel completely withdrew from Gaza in 2005. All the same, Israel is accused of imposing a “blockade” on the coastal strip — without a mention that everything necessary for the residents of Gaza is allowed, or that what is being blockaded are deadly weapons. Also never mentioned is the extreme brutality of Hamas operatives towards their own residents of Gaza, who are all Arabs, or that the Palestinian Authority still supports and finances terrorism. The Palestinian Authority’s rewards and incentives for murdering Jews are also always left out.

On June 24, The New York Times published yet another biased report: “Gaza’s Deadly Night: How Israeli Airstrikes Killed 44 People”. The Times stated that “on May 16, Israeli airstrikes destroyed three apartment buildings, decimating several families”. It never noted that Hamas had attacked Israel, that Hamas uses civilians as human shields, or that Israel invariably warns residents in advance about buildings set to be destroyed, to provide time for the residents to leave rather than be injured or killed.

On May 18, when Israel was being subjected to some of the 4,000 missiles fired at it by Hamas, French Prime Minister Jean Castex… announced that he was “worried about the fate of the civilian populations in Gaza”. He did not even touch on what Hamas and Iran are planning for Israel’s population.

London. May 23. An organization called The Palestinian Solidarity Campaign organized a protest against Israel. 180,000 people turned up. Placards compared Israelis to the Nazis, and black flags of jihadist movements, accompanied by cries of “Allahu Akbar”, fluttered alongside the Palestinian flags. “Israel, the new Nazi state”, some read; and “Nazis are still around, now they call themselves Zionists”. This kind of comparison is now common among many in Europe who also seem sympathetic to Marxism, in which there always has to be an “oppressor” and “oppressed”, never a “win-win” or a “making the pie bigger.” Do these new Marxists, who compare Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East, to the Third Reich and the Zionists to the Nazis, really not know what the Nazis did to six million Jews, or what Communists and Marxists today, in China, Russia, Cuba, or Venezuela, are still doing to their own citizens?

The protesters in London shouted openly anti-Semitic slogans. One demonstrator, Tariq Ali, a member of the editorial committee of the New Left Review, addressing the crowd, implied that the Jews deserve a second Holocaust: “They have learned nothing from what happened to them in Europe. Nothing”. Another man exhibited a drawing of Christ carrying the cross, along with the words: “Do not let them do the same thing again”. A few days earlier, when a convoy adorned with Palestinian flags drove through a Jewish area in North London, shouts from loudspeakers included “Free Palestine”, “F**k the Jews”, “F**k their daughters”, “F**k their mothers” and “Rape their daughters”.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17564/biden-iran-feeding-crocodile

Have the Biden administration and the European Union already forgotten the disastrous outcome of appeasing the mullahs in 2015…? US President Barack Obama pledged at the time that he was “confident” the deal would “meet the national security needs of the United States and our allies”.

Throughout that time, the EU and the Obama administration not only initiated and expanded appeasement policies, they made unprecedented concessions in an attempt to dissuade the ruling mullahs from their internal and external aggression. The US and the EU met the Iranian mullahs with generosity and flexibility every step of the way.

After sanctions against the mullahs were lifted, instead of bringing peace and curbing Iran’s malign behavior at home and abroad, those appeasements… generated billions of dollars in revenue for Iran’s military institution, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, as well as for Iran’s militia and terror groups. Tehran used that influx of revenues to expand its influence throughout the region, especially in Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and Iraq.

Iran’s aggressive expansion campaign proved immensely successful. The Iranian-armed Houthis ratcheted up efforts to cause death and destruction in Yemen, and Hezbollah escalated its involvement and control of large swathes of Syrian territory. The region also saw a greater propensity for Houthi rocket launches at civilian targets in Saudi Arabia, the deployment of thousands of Hezbollah foot soldiers in Syria, and the constant bombardment of southern Israel by Iranian-funded Hamas rockets.

The present Western strategy is no different from enriching the Nazi Germany during WWII or Soviet Russia during the Cold War. For the rogue state, concessions and appeasements mean weakness. It would have been so much less costly in life and treasure to stop Hitler before he crossed the Rhine.

Winston Churchill famously warned against appeasing the aggressor: “Each one hopes that if he feeds the crocodile enough, the crocodile will eat him last. All of them hope that the storm will pass before their turn comes to be devoured. But I fear — I fear greatly — the storm will not pass. It will rage and it will roar, ever more loudly, ever more widely. It will spread to the South; it will spread to the North.”

History has repeatedly proven that appeasing a rogue state only emboldens and empowers it. Nevertheless, the Biden administration and the European Union appear determined to pursue this dangerous policy of appeasement against a regime that chants “Death to America”, that plots to push the US out of the Middle East, that is committed to uprooting and replacing Israel, and that is, according to the US Department of State, one of only four state sponsors of terrorism, as well as a leading violator of human rights.

All the same, on July 2, sanctions against three Iranians were lifted under Executive Order 13382. These individuals had also been sanctioned by the previous US administration for their involvement in advancing Iran’s ballistic missile program.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17547/china-mobilizing-war

Beijing looks as if it is preparing for a full-scale invasion of Indian territory…. Ladakh is not the only hotspot. There is a Chinese encroachment in India’s Sikkim as well as incursions in neighboring Bhutan and Nepal.

Lately, Xi’s references in public pronouncements have become unmistakable, and his subordinates have been clear that Xi believes that everyone outside China owes him obedience.

Xi, while spouting tianxia-like language and bellicose words, has been getting the Chinese people ready for war.

The changes signal the growing clout of the People’s Army inside the Party and highlight the militarization of the country’s external relations. China is fast becoming a military state.

Xi Jinping on July 1 told the world what he is going to do. We are, in all probability, in the last moments of peace.

China in recent weeks has sent tens of thousands of troops to its disputed border with India in Ladakh, high in the Himalayas.

Beijing looks as if it is preparing for a full-scale invasion of Indian territory.

This deployment occurred while Chinese ruler Xi Jinping, in the words of the Communist Party’s China Daily, made a “pro-peace, pro-development, and pro-cooperation speech” to celebrate the centennial of the Party’s founding.

“The Chinese people have never bullied, oppressed, or subjugated the people of any other country, and we never will,” Xi said on July 1.

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/china/2021/07/ the-darkening-shadows-of-100-candles/

Helmsman Xi Jinping, dressed in his best Mao suit for the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), presented himself to the captive population of the PRC, not to mention the (not-yet captive) world, as the third-most significant leader of the party: the successor to Great Helmsman Mao Zedong and Paramount Leader Deng Xiaoping. In this, at any rate, Xi was not wrong. Everything else about the July 1 celebrations in Tiananmen Square was pretty much smoke and mirrors.

The great conceit of the Leninist dictator is that that connection between the party, the nation and the people is indivisible. The CCP, according to Xi, has always “loved the Chinese people”. At this point in Xi’s speech, one’s thoughts drifted to the party’s murderously quixotic Great Leap Forward (1958-62) which resulted in the death of approximately 45 million people. Liu Shaoqi (1898-69), at the Seven Thousand Cadres Conference in 1962, acknowledged the famine was 30 per cent the fault of nature and 70 per cent human error. In other words, the party was directly responsible for the death of 31.5 million people, even more than the 3.9 million (and counting) thought to have died on account of the CCP virus (also known as SARS-CoV-2).

The fate of Liu, one-time PRC head of state and author of How to be a Good Communist (1939), tells us much of what we need to know about Leninism with Chinese Characteristics. The former Chairman of the People’s Republic was demeaned, tortured, and purged by the party during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Officially designated a former-person, Liu (right) was sentenced to house arrest outside of Beijing and died, ignominiously, in 1969. Although his reputation had been trashed by the party for the period of the Cultural Revolution (1966-76), Liu was posthumously rehabilitated by Paramount Leader Deng Xiaoping in 1980. His definitive rehabilitation, though, has now formally taken place. Helmsman Xi named him, along with Mao, Zhou, Deng and Zhu, as one of the great heroes of the party at the Tiananmen Square celebration.

As President Xi went on about “the spirit of the party”, I wondered what “the spirit of Liu Shaoqi” might have made of the occasion. Would he have been uplifted by the choir of 10,000 belting out patriotic songs about “national rejuvenation” – material, ethical, cultural, and ecological! – under the guidance of the party? Would the first appearance in the sky of the PLA’s Chengdu J-20 stealth fighters (left) have been a moment of immense pride? And, finally, would his induction into the pantheon of party legends have mitigated the shame he endured in the final years of his life?

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/bryan-preston/2021/07/07/france-germany-and-britain-sound-alarm-on-irans-nuclear-moves-the-u-s-n1460117

On Tuesday afternoon, France, Britain, and Germany released a joint statement regarding Iran’s latest nuclear moves. VOA’s Jeff Seldin tweeted the statement out.

The three allies “note with grave concern the latest report by the IAEA confirming that Iran has taken steps in the production of enriched uranium material.” The statement further notes that Iran has no credible civilian use for its activities, leading the three to suspect that Iran is taking steps toward developing nuclear weapons.

It should be obvious why this is a gravely serious issue.

It’s made more grave by United States silence on the one hand, and Joe Biden’s obvious eagerness to get the Obama-era Iran deal back in vogue on the other. Like most American leftists, results that benefit Americans are of dubious value and matter a lot less to Biden than the appearances of inking some “historic” deal or initiating some government program that the media will cast as well-meaning. It’s the PR that sells the thought that counts.

Iran is not on strong footing these days, but that matters little. It’s internally as brittle as ever. Israel continues working solid diplomacy with some of its Arab neighbors after Trump’s historic Abraham Accords.

Iran lost power and even its “countdown to Armageddon” clock reportedly went offline in the blackouts. Yes, we’re having some blackouts too thanks to a grid that hasn’t kept up with population growth in Texas and an overreliance on wind and solar there and in other states. But America doesn’t keep a running clock that’s just counting down the seconds until we can annihilate someone based on their race and heritage. Iran does. That clock is what reportedly went dark.

Biden still wants to treat Iran as some kind of quasi-normal state despite the fact that it’s run by one of the world’s worst dictatorships — and one of the world’s most prolific sponsors of terrorism.

Nuclear weapons in such hands spell violence, misery, and doom.

In April 2021, Foreign Policy warned that Biden returning the United States to the Obama-era JCPOA would be unwise.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17551/what-is-china-doing

What does China want the narrative to be? The ideal outcome would be that the virus originated outside of China. Failing that, an acceptable outcome would be, as highlighted in a recent Wall Street Journal (WSJ) article, that the virus “that killed millions of people and shattered the global economy” would be “among the world’s most consequential mysteries.”

There is one outcome that would be unacceptable to the CCP: China will do almost anything to keep the U.S. from concluding that the virus was developed in the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The CCP is already taking steps to encourage the U.S. to reach “the right” judgment, and it appears to have people in the West, including in the U.S., who are willingly supporting those efforts.

The Lancet has again come out with an unjustified dismissal of the lab leak theory, couched in support for the G7’s call for a new COVID origins study, led by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Nothing could be better for China than having The Lancet as the messenger, lending scientific credibility to what the CCP wants the world to believe.

The July 5 publication of the letter in The Lancet is a strong signal that the CCP has launched an active disinformation campaign. The CCP will continue to spare no effort in ensuring that the COVID-19 virus appears to have originated somewhere other than China….

On May 26, 2021, President Joe Biden announced that he had asked the U.S. intelligence community to redouble its efforts to determine the origins of the COVID-19 virus. The U.S. findings are expected in about 90 days. So now we know what the Biden administration is doing, but what will the Chinese government, or the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), do? In light of China’s obfuscation so far, it is absurd to imagine that it will be cooperating with the U.S. investigation. Neither will it be sitting idly by waiting to learn of the U.S. intelligence community’s conclusions. Instead, the CCP will be doing everything it can to shape the report and ensure that the findings will be released in a context saturated by Chinese propaganda.

What does China want the narrative to be? The ideal outcome would be that the virus originated outside of China. Failing that, an acceptable outcome would be, as highlighted in a recent Wall Street Journal (WSJ) article, that the virus “that killed millions of people and shattered the global economy” would be “among the world’s most consequential mysteries.”

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/china-continues-crackdown-on-companies/

The Chinese Communist Party has tightened its grip over its political and economic system in a number of high-profile moves. From silencing those who mention Taiwan’s independence to quashing Hong Kong’s independence, the CCP is aggressively targeting people and institutions that it deems a threat. A new Bloomberg report finds that the Communist Party will be closing a legal loophole that benefitted Chinese tech companies. This change has worried U.S. investors and politicians who are rightly concerned about whether China is stable enough to invest in.  

The China Securities Regulatory Commission is amending a rule that mandates companies get approval from the Chinese government to list their companies in the U.S. or Hong Kong. Before, tech companies were able to maneuver around this rule by setting up companies offshore. This loophole has been quite lucrative for Chinese firms, which have raised over $75 billion in first-time share offerings in the United States. Despite the financial success of companies that have used this loophole, Bloomberg reports,

The proposed change is the first indication of how Beijing plans to implement a crackdown on overseas listings flagged by the country’s State Council on Tuesday. Closer oversight would plug a gap that’s been used for two decades by technology giants from Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. to Tencent Holdings Ltd. to attract foreign capital and list offshore, potentially thwarting the ambitions of firms like ByteDance Ltd. contemplating going public outside the mainland.

Since the American and Chinese economies are increasingly intertwined, this is not only a problem for Chinese consumers. CNBC reported that the $2 trillion Chinese tech market has been a major object of American investment. This means that any volatility in the Chinese market can deeply affect our own economy. Politicians are becoming more aware of this issue. The Financial Times reported that Marco Rubio said,

“American investors still have no insight into the company’s [DiDi, a Chinese ride-sharing app] financial strength because the Chinese Communist party blocks US regulators from reviewing the books,” Rubio said. “That puts the investments of American retirees at risk and funnels desperately needed US dollars into Beijing.”

All of this volatility is projected to have a negative effect on the Chinese economy because regulating companies hurts growth and stifles innovation. Xi Jinping’s attacks on his own country’s firms show the dangers of a socialized economy. More important, it should serve as a warning to American investors who heavily invest in foreign, state-run economies. America can’t stop the Chinese Communist Party’s authoritarianism from hurting its own economy, and American investors should be careful tying their financial success to China’s benevolence.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/more-than-500-chinese-stem-students-denied-visa-to-the-us_3890384.html

More than 500 Chinese STEM students’ visa applications to study at major American universities were recently rejected by the U.S. government over security concerns, Chinese media reported. The news sparked debate on Chinese social media and netizens claim that most of the student visa applicants are from Chinese universities that have ties to the Chinese military.

On July 7, Chinese state-run newspaper China Daily reported that at least 500 Chinese students who are majored in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) were denied visas by the U.S. Embassy and Consulates on the grounds of violating Section 212(f) of the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act and Presidential Proclamation 10043.

Section 212(f) gives the U.S. president the power to deny entry of aliens or non-U.S. nationals who are deemed detrimental to the interests of the United States. Based on that statute, former President Donald Trump issued Proclamation 10043 on May 29, 2020, titled “Suspension of Entry as Nonimmigrants of Certain Students and Researchers From the People’s Republic of China,” in response to China’s technological theft through its researchers and students studying at American universities and research institutes.

According to China Daily, the visa applicants are all graduate students who have been accepted by American universities—including Harvard University, Yale University, University of California at Berkeley, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Johns Hopkins University—to study for a doctoral or master’s degree in the United States. Most of them are studying engineering, computer science, machinery, chemistry, materials science, biomedicine, and other science programs.

After their visa applications were rejected, more than 500 Chinese STEM students co-signed a letter that circulated on Chinese social media, asking the U.S. government to resolve the so-called “discrimination and suppression” of Chinese students.