RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/03/family-life-uks-lockdown-katie-hopkins/

It’s fair to say people don’t necessarily see me as the homely type. I am built like a stick insect with biceps. I never talk about my husband or kids in public. And through a recent short-haired phase of mine, I managed to convince most God-loving Americans I was a full-blown lesbian.

It is true in part. I have been a catastrophic failure at much of what mothering is supposed to be. My first marriage lasted less than a year, leaving me as a single mother with two children under the age of two and a job that spanned both sides of the Atlantic.

(The beady-eyed amongst you will have spotted that any notion of saving myself for the wedding night went out the window around the same time I learned to drive. According to my mother, you aren’t supposed to have a two-year-old when you have been married for less than a year).

I have never been asked to be a godmother, ever. None of my friends have thought me worthy or capable enough of being the person to care for their child if the worst should befall them. When you are looking for a safe, capable, and secure pair of hands, my name is not the first name on the list.

I tell you all this not out of self-pity (though the failure to be a godmother to any living thing is quite the indictment) but because lockdown has not impacted us all equally at all. And I recognize that cancer sufferers, COPD patients, and the very elderly have had a bit of a rough time with this flu.

But spare a thought for ball-breaking bitches like me. We were not designed to be at home. At no point did I gain 350lbs after my wedding and start home-baking meringue pie and wearing aprons with frills on. And I have zero interest in life hacks for cleaning the slats in my window blinds. If they see a vacuum cleaner once a year, they can consider themselves blessed.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-plays-up-ascendancy-over-west-as-it-sets-economic-path-11614854159?mod=world_major_2_pos4

HONG KONG—Fresh from declaring victories over the coronavirus and rural poverty, Chinese leader Xi Jinping is charting a new economic path aimed at sustaining China’s rise and entrenching his personal authority for years to come.

In recent weeks, state media has feted Mr. Xi as an astute and farsighted leader who has driven China’s success in eliminating poverty and anchored the nation’s stability while the U.S. and other Western powers reel from the Covid-19 pandemic. Mr. Xi and other officials have played up perceptions that “the East is rising and the West is declining,” underpinned by what they described as the Communist Party’s superiority in tackling crises and long-term challenges.

The image-building is set to continue over an annual legislative session that begins Friday, as Mr. Xi pivots from the poverty-alleviation drive to his next priority: building a modern, powerful nation by 2035.

In this “new expedition” to modernize China, the “risks and tests to be confronted will not be any less than in the past,” Mr. Xi told a group of midlevel party officials earlier this week. He renewed demands for fealty to his leadership, saying party members should show courage in enduring hardship and facing risks, and demonstrate their loyalty to the Communist Party through their actions.

Nearly 3,000 lawmakers are gathering in Beijing to review a new economic blueprint—known as the 14th five-year plan—and broad guidelines that would shape China’s growth model over the next decade and a half. Coming ahead of the party’s centenary celebrations in July, the weeklong conclave also offers Mr. Xi a platform for promoting the merits of his autocratic style over the foibles of Western democracy.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/03/the-international-criminal-courts-latest-anti-israel-salvo/

The court’s politicization of war-crimes investigations harms the cause of international justice.

In a move singling out Israel, International Criminal Court head prosecutor Fatou Bensouda declared Wednesday that her office is beginning an investigation into “war crimes” committed in the West Bank and Gaza.

This investigation will ostensibly cover atrocities committed against Israelis as well, but Bensouda has for years shown a single-minded determination to take Israel to court, navigating numerous procedural hurdles to lay the groundwork for yesterday’s announcement.

“Israel has come under attack,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said yesterday in reaction to the announcement, calling it “undiluted anti-Semitism and the height of hypocrisy.”

Given the ICC’s record, one would be hard-pressed not to see a political motive to Bensouda’s decision. Even the Biden administration expressed its disappointment, reiterating its opposition to the February court ruling that granted the Palestinians standing to bring the case. “The ICC, as we have said, has no jurisdiction over this matter. Israel is not a party to the ICC, and it has not consented to the court’s jurisdiction,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said. “And we have serious concerns about the ICC’s attempts to exercise its jurisdiction over Israeli personnel.”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17138/arabs-biden-obama

The Biden administration, some Arab writers have said, “has adopted a policy of “antagonizing allies while appeasing enemies.”

[Syrian journalist Abduljalil] Alsaeid said he believed that former Obama administration officials, who are now part of the Biden administration, are intentionally trying to damage US-Saudi relations.

“The Obama wing inside the ruling Democratic Party accepts the Iranian regime and turns a blind eye to Iran’s terrorism in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon.” — Abduljalil Alsaeid, Syrian journalist, Al-Ain, March 2, 2021.

“President Biden has the right to talk about America’s democratic values, but why have these values ​​not been expanded to hold Hezbollah accountable for the recent killing of [anti-Hezbollah Lebanese publisher] Loqman Slim or the slaughter of thousands of thousands of Syrians by pro-Iranian groups?” — Abduljalil Alsaeid, Al-Ain, March 2, 2021.

The Biden administration was “rewarding Iranian despotism while punishing Saudi Arabia.” — Emad El Din Adeeb, a prominent Egyptian businessman and famous political television show host, elsharkonline com, March 3, 2021.

The Biden administration was dealing harshly with Riyadh “because of one crime, the killing of Khashoggi, while rehabilitating Tehran, which has carried out a million crimes worse than Khashoggi’s crime.” — Emad El Din Adeeb, al-ain.com, March 3, 2021.

Adeeb pointed out that Iran was continuing with its human rights violations while Saudi Arabia has in recent years embarked on large-scale reforms.

According to al-Sawafi, the release of the report on the slain Saudi journalist was a sign that the Biden administration “stands against the aspirations of the Saudi and Gulf people in achieving reform and stability.

“Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was right when he asserted that the Iranian regime understands only the language of force.” — Zuhair Al-Harthi, Saudi columnist and political activist, Al-Arabiya, February 27, 2021.

The last three years of the Obama presidency were “catastrophic in every sense of this word,” al-Harthi said. “Will Biden fall into the same trap? Washington’s standing declined during the Obama presidency. Will Biden repeat Obama’s fatal mistakes? The US dealings at the time with regional issues were a source of ridicule, as Washington delivered Iraq and Afghanistan on a golden platter to Iran and supported the Muslim Brotherhood.” — Zuhair Al-Harthi, Al-Arabiya, February 27, 2021.

Prominent Arab political analysts and commentators are dumbfounded that the Biden administration has chosen to appease Iran and Islamists instead of working with Washington’s traditional and long-time allies in the Arab world.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/nine-killed-in-myanmar-as-regime-seeks-to-crush-anticoup-protests-11614775439

At least 38 people were killed as Myanmar’s new military rulers, who overthrew its democratically elected government Feb. 1, continued to unleash a lethal campaign to suppress protests that have swept the country for nearly a month.

The death toll, announced by the United Nations, makes Wednesday the deadliest day since the takeover.

Security forces opened fire at protesters in numerous cities, according to demonstrators and medics responding to the violence. A 19-year-old woman, wearing a T-shirt that read, “Everything will be ok,” was fatally shot in the head. Men were struck by bullets in their eyes and chests as they ran, and police assaulted medics.

Protesters had been more cautious since a crackdown on Sunday, when police killed at least 18 people. Security forces who had only occasionally shot live rounds before that day have since used gunfire frequently, according to civil-society groups, protesters and medics.

Protesters have poured into the streets for 26 straight days demanding that the coup, which ended a decadelong transition to democracy, be reversed. Demonstrations at times drawing tens of thousands have taken place, with crowds mobilizing in towns and cities across the country. The large-scale participation has underscored the broad rejection of the military, which governed Myanmar for half a century before the democratic shift began.

The killings on Sunday and Wednesday indicate that the generals are turning to the same approach used during decades of army dictatorship to crush dissent: bloodshed, mass arrests and nightly raids to strike terror. Commander in-Chief Min Aung Hlaing, who is now in control, has shown no willingness to compromise or respond to the widespread international condemnation of the military regime’s actions. He has said authorities are acting with restraint.

On Wednesday, six people were killed in the country’s largest city, Yangon, according to a doctor at the North Okkalapa General Hospital. Others died in the central cities of Mandalay, Monywa and Myingyan, according to rescue organizations helping the injured in those places.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17126/international-criminal-court-violations

At present… the ICC renders itself irrelevant by adjudicating “national jurisdictions” perfectly capable of doing so while refusing to adjudicate or indict the world’s worst violators of human rights.

The ICC has already provided its critics with plenty of ammunition to question the Court’s legitimacy as a consequence of additional violations of its founding statute. Neither Israel nor the United States ratified the Rome Statute (the ICC’s founding treaty). The Court therefore has no jurisdiction whatsoever over the state actions of either country.

State parties dissatisfied with the ICC’s dismal record should be encouraged to discontinue financial support for the Court or to withdraw altogether from the Hague-based institution.

Meanwhile, at least four Gulf Arab states and other Muslim-majority countries appear far more concerned, with good reason, about Iran’s drive for regional supremacy, while welcoming warming relations with Israel, which will prove a most loyal friend.

The International Criminal Court (ICC), by straying far from its original purpose, has perjured itself. The ICC was established in 1998 to bring justice to victims of systematic atrocity in countries unable to do so. In its own words, “The core mandate of the ICC is to act as a court of last resort with the capacity to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes when national jurisdictions for any reason are unable or unwilling to do so.”

At present, however, the ICC renders itself irrelevant by adjudicating “national jurisdictions” perfectly capable of doing so, while refusing to adjudicate or indict the world’s worst violators of human rights.

The Court’s February 5 decision authorizing the investigation of unfounded allegations of a pattern of human rights violations supposedly committed by Israel Defense Force (IDF) personnel underscores the ICC’s corrupted political nature.

First, the ICC has violated its founding statute by accepting into its docket a complaint against a sovereign state (Israel) by a non-state entity (Palestinian plaintiffs), twisting international law to try to alchemize “Palestine” into a state by pointing to its observer status in some UN bodies. Close but no cigar. The Court, by trying to legitimize the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) illegal briefs, therefore only confirms the views of its critics that it merely serves as an instrument of the Palestinian Arab propaganda war against Israel.

The Court further underscores these violations by treating Hamas as a legal equivalent of Israel in the terrorist group’s charges against the IDF in the 2014 Gaza War.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17131/europe-covid-passports

Tourism-dependent countries, including Austria, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Portugal and Spain, are urging other EU states to adopt Covid passports, which would be modeled on the “green passport” system implemented by Israel.

“We know that in Israel they’ve made statements about anybody who tries to forge [a certificate] will face criminal proceedings and possibly be imprisoned. So, they really think that this is a risk that could happen.” — Professor Carsten Maple, cyber security expert, Alan Turing Institute.

“In consultation with other EU member states, we are in favor of a digital green passport, similar to the one in #Israel. This should offer the possibility to prove on the mobile phone that one has been tested, vaccinated or recovered. Our goal: to avoid a permanent lockdown & finally to enable freedom to travel within the EU as well as to visit events or restaurants.” — Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz.

Greece is pressing the EU to move quickly…. But would these certificates only be required for international travel or could they be needed for getting a job, attending a football match, or buying some milk? — Professor Melinda Mills, lead author of the Royal Society report on Covid passports.

“Yet making freedom conditional on facing the needle… takes us perilously close to the concept of compulsory vaccination… hardly likely to reassure anyone whose fear of the vaccine is bound up with a fear of an authoritarian state.” — Gaby Hinsliff, columnist, Guardian.

European leaders are considering a proposal to introduce a common EU-wide Coronavirus vaccination passport. The so-called Covid passports would permit those who have been vaccinated to travel freely within the European Union without the need for quarantining and testing.

The leaders of several European countries heavily dependent on tourism are pushing for Covid passports to be implemented with immediate effect. Others say that it is far too early to consider such a move, especially because the EU’s Coronavirus vaccine rollout has been dogged by delays and questions about the efficacy of certain vaccines, particularly in light of the virus’s new mutant strains.