RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://asiatimes.com/2021/02/sino-forming-south-of-the-border/

Huawei’s development of Mexico’s mobile broadband infrastructure has powered extraordinary growth
Mexico’s retail ecommerce sales growth led the world in 2019.

Sometime in 2015, I sat in the back of a Mexico City taxi, reading instructions from Waze to the driver. We took detours through small residential streets, zigzagged from one major artery to another, and hung risky U-turns – all of which cut half an hour from our travel time. I had to give the directions because the driver didn’t use Waze, because, like most Mexican taxistas in 2015, he couldn’t afford the mobile broadband, which cost more in Mexico than in any other large country.

That was then. By 2020 about a third of Mexico City drivers were using the navigation app. In 2019 Mexico had 77 mobile broadband accounts per 100 people, vs. only 23 accounts in 2013. And Mexico last year had the world’s highest percentage growth in e-commerce.

This transformation had something to do with my taxi ride of 2015, at least tangentially. I had a cabinet-level meeting at Mexico’s Ministry of Telecommunications, in my then capacity as head of Americas for a Hong Kong investment banking boutique. As I reported in my book You Will Be Assimilated: China’s Plan to Sino-Form the World, I introduced top Huawei executives to senior Mexican officials, then debating an overhaul of the country’s woefully inadequate broadband system.

Nothing happened in 2015; later that year Jack Ma acquired the boutique and within a few months fired the Western bankers. But in 2017 Mexico invited Huawei and Nokia to build a “shared network” (red compartida) for mobile broadband. Banned from the United States, Huawei flourished in Mexico, and its broadband base stations provide service for dozens of Mexican cities, including a few that originally were assigned to Nokia. The cost of broadband service plunged and the number of subscribers more than tripled. Waze, a luxury that only a visiting gringo could afford in 2015, now serves 2 million users per day in Mexico City alone, and Mexico has become the app’s number four market globally. Anyone who has tried to negotiate the Mexican capital’s paralytic traffic knows how much that improves quality of life.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/02/re-election-londons-sadiq-khan-

In a little under three months, Sadiq Khan will be re-elected Mayor of London.

It is not guaranteed, of course. Londoners will head to the polls on May 6 to cast their votes in local elections, both for the office of Mayor of London and for members of the Greater London Assembly, a body designed to scrutinize the office.

But it feels horribly like a forgone conclusion.

The Conservatives are putting up about as much fight as Switzerland. Their candidate, Shaun Bailey, feels like a token effort, put up to tick the box but not expected to achieve much.

Others are making a bolder effort. Brian Rose from London Real has acquired a blazing black and red bus bearing his name and is valiantly touring the 32 London boroughs in his attempt to get elected, but faces impossible odds. As I know from personal experience, campaigning alone is hard. The fastest way to learn about the power of the party is to try to run without one. Brian is up against the might of the Labour Party and its vice-like grip on the levers of power in this city.

It is exasperating. Because of Labour and Union support, and Muslim majority in inner city London, it is impossible to still the wrecking ball that is Khan.

London is unrecognizable from the city many Americans once knew and loved. It is screaming out in pain, like a stuck creature desperate to be put out of its misery. This week there were 14 stabbings in one 24-hour period, leaving two dead in the street where they were cut down. And not a word was heard from the gilded cage of the London Mayor.

Stabbings are so often gang-related, confined to certain zip codes and certain segments of the population (young, black, living in sink estates), that it is easy for the Mayor to turn a blind eye.

It is the reason British natives are fleeing the capital in their droves. Burglaries and assaults are so commonplace as not to merit an officer in attendance, while the opportunity to do some politically-correct policing has the boys in blue falling over themselves to be seen. When diversity is the end goal, all else is lost along the way.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17051/international-criminal-court-threatens-peace

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has long had its sights on what it no doubt considers an unholy trinity: Israel, the US and Britain…. First, these are the three Western democracies most active in using legitimate military force to defend their interests. This is anathema to the left-liberal doctrine of ICC officials and their soul-mates in such morally dissipated places as the UN Human Rights Council. Second, they wish to virtue signal, deflecting criticism that the court is biased against African states….

Yet by its charter, dealing with countries that lack the will or capability to bring their own to justice is the sole purpose of the ICC. This does apply to some states in Africa and elsewhere but demonstrably does not apply to Israel, the US or Britain, each of which have long-established and globally respected legal systems.

The ICC’s design against Israel is the latest in a long history of endeavours to subjugate and scourge unwilling Jewish people deemed incapable of regulating themselves. When you examine the unexampled contortions the court has gone through just to get to this point, you have no choice but to question whether antisemitism is the motive.

The effects of the ICC’s decision will be profound. This is only the end of the beginning. Unless halted, investigations into spurious allegations of war crimes will go on for years, perhaps decades, creating a global bonanza for all who hate Israel, including at the UN, the European Union, various governments and in universities and so-called human rights groups.

But the most detrimental effect of the ICC’s decision will be felt by Palestinian Arab people who, for decades, have been abused as political pawns by their leaders and who would be the greatest beneficiaries of any peace agreement with Israel. The ICC’s ruling makes such a deal even more remote today.

In an unprecedented move early last year Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Australia, Canada, Uganda and Brazil petitioned the ICC, of which all are members, arguing that a formal investigation could not be launched as the Palestinian Authority does not meet the definition of a state under the Rome Statute that established and governs the court.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) waited until after US President Joe Biden took the oath of office before unilaterally handing itself territorial jurisdiction over Israel — more than a full year since the pre-trial chamber was asked to rule on the matter. Mindful of President Donald J. Trump’s sanctions against ICC staff, including revoking Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda’s US entry visa, and his warnings against efforts to brand Israel and other allies as war criminals, court officials lacked the steel to make an announcement while he remained in the Oval Office.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16978/turkish-reforms-repression

The Turks’ political journey toward the West began a century and a half ago, but Turkey now remains as distant from universal democratic values as the Ottoman Empire was at its collapse.

Modern Turkey’s darkest years came between 1976 and 1980, when a campaign of political violence, wrought by a multitude of far-left and far-right urban guerilla groups, killed more than 5,000 people. That era only came to an end when the military took over the country in a completed coup d’état and the violence subsided.

Twenty years later, a militant Islamist, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, pledged radically to reform Turkish democracy and make it an inseparable part of Europe — via full membership in the European Union. Two decades after that pledge Turkey’s democracy remains as remote from Europe’s civil liberties, democratic culture and checks and balances as Abdulhamid’s empire was in 1876.

The Turks’ political journey toward the West began a century and a half ago, but Turkey now remains as distant from universal democratic values as the Ottoman Empire was at its collapse. The parallels between failed Ottoman and Turkish reforms are worth a look.

During that 150-year period, in addition to building railway systems on imperial soil, systems for registering the population and control over the press were established, along with the first local modern law school in 1898. The most far-reaching reforms occurred in education: many professional schools were established for fields including the law, arts, trades, civil engineering, veterinary medicine, customs, farming and linguistics.

It was Sultan Abdulhamid II who was under Western pressure to reform his ailing empire. On December 23, 1876 the Ottoman constitution was solemnly promulgated with the aim of winning the hearts and minds of the Great Powers of Europe, only to be suspended when external pressure abated, and its author sent to exile. At the beginning of the 20th century, another constitutionalist reformer group, the Committee of Union and Progress, threatened the sultan with a coup d’état, ending Abdulhamid’s reign.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/02/real-socialism-john-stossel/

People hate America’s big disparities in wealth. It’s a reason why, among young people, socialism is as popular as capitalism.

The Democratic Socialists of America want a country based on “freedom, equality and solidarity.” That sure sounds good.

But does socialism bring that?

My new video debunks several myths about socialism.

One reason for socialism’s continued appeal is linguist Noam Chomsky. For generations, his work has taught students that capitalism is “a grotesque catastrophe.”

I assumed the fall of the Soviet Union would put an end to such misinformation. It did — for about a month.

But since then, the lust for socialism has come back strong. Today, Chomsky says that the Soviet Union “was about as remote from socialism as you could imagine.”

https://spectator.us/topic/whos-coronavirus-investigation-confirms-worthlessness/

So, according to the World Health Organization‘s latest findings, it is most likely that the COVID-19 virus jumped from an animal to a human. It is unlikely that the pathogen spread due to a leak from a lab in Wuhan. The WHO did not rule out the possibility of a lab leak entirely, but made clear they would not investigate that thread any further.

The WHO, of course, has proven itself to be far from trustworthy on matters related to China and the coronavirus. The international organization last January repeated a false claim from Chinese authorities that there was no evidence of ‘human-to-human transmission’ of COVID-19. The WHO initially praised China’s totalitarian lockdown measures for containing the virus, only to later say that they do not advocate lockdowns as the primary form of controlling the spread.

There are other reasons to be skeptical of the WHO’s investigation as well. China was able to delay the start of the investigation by several weeks, indicating they still intended to be less than transparent with the WHO team of investigators. The Wall Street Journal reported that the WHO team intended to build on previous reports by Chinese officials rather than mount its own independent investigation, and would not focus on the possibility that the virus escaped from a lab:

‘Given that Chinese authorities have been slow to release information, penalized scientists and doctors who shared clinical and genomic details of the novel coronavirus, and have since demonstrated a keen interest in controlling the narrative of how the virus emerged, this is not a promising foundation for WHO’s investigation.’

China has most recently been pushing the claim that new COVID-19 outbreaks in the country are tied to the import of frozen food products.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17048/china-gene-editing

“U.S. intelligence shows that China has conducted human testing on members of the People’s Liberation Army in hope of developing soldiers with biologically enhanced capabilities,” wrote then Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, in a December 3 Wall Street Journal op-ed titled “China Is National Security Threat No. 1.”

All these Chinese moves are meant to obtain “biological dominance.” “There are,” as Ratcliffe noted, “no ethical boundaries to Beijing’s pursuit of power.”

The experiment evoked the eugenics program of the Third Reich to create a “master race.”

Shenzhen’s He [Jenkui], after an international uproar caused by news of his dangerous and unethical work, was fined and jailed for “illegally carrying out human embryo gene-editing,” but in the Communist Party’s near-total surveillance state he obviously had state backing for his experiments…. Beijing’s prosecution of He, therefore, looks like an attempt to cool down the furor and prevent the international scientific community from further inquiry into China’s activities.

“What is most disturbing about these endeavors is that China has gleaned access to CRISPR and advanced genetic and biotech research, thanks to their relationship with the United States and other advanced Western nations. American research labs, biotech investors, and scientists have all striven to do research and business in China’s budding biotech arena… because the ethical standards for research… are so low.” — Brandon Weichert, author of The Weichert Report and Winning Space, interview with Gatestone Institute, February 2021.

Bing Su, a Chinese geneticist at the state-run Kunming Institute of Zoology, recently inserted the human MCPH1 gene, which develops the brain, into a monkey. The insertion could make that animal’s intelligence more human than that of lower primates. Su’s next experiment is inserting into monkeys the SRGAP2C gene, related to human intelligence, and the FOXP2 gene, connected to language skills.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17046/iran-dissidents-pressure

“[T]he Islamic Republic Theocracy is on the verge of collapse”. — Letter from 38 Iran-based dissidents to the Biden administration, February 1, 2021.

“The moment Biden joins the nuclear deal and unblocks the money for the Islamic Republic, the regime will once again dish out money even to Taliban, ISIS, Al Qaeda, but Iranians will keep remaining in a bad state.” — Fatemeh Sepehri, interview with Masih Alinejad, Twitter, February 5, 2021.

“We don’t have human rights in Iran….People are repressed in Iran… Executions, unjust sentences, abysmal prison conditions… We Iranians don’t want the Islamic Republic any longer”. — Fatemeh Sepehri, interview with Masih Alinejad, Twitter, February 5, 2021.

Returning to the JCPOA on Iran’s terms will require lifting sanctions — an act that will strengthen and embolden the Iranian regime. Lifting sanctions is what the dissidents in Iran are literally pleading with the Biden administration not to do.

Taking huge personal risks, 38 Iran-based dissidents have asked the Biden administration to retain “maximum pressure” on Iran. In a letter dated February 1, they urge President Joe Biden to maintain “maximum political, diplomatic, and financial pressure on the regime” and to support the Iranians’ “determination in seeking a secular democratic government through a non-violent, free, and fair referendum”.

“Following the JCPOA agreement, when Iran received substantial financial benefits, the Islamic Republic lost a major opportunity to implement meaningful welfare reforms for its people…” the Iranian dissidents write in their letter.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/02/iranian_emdiplomatem_sentenced_to_20_years_prison_in_european_terror_plot.html

Diplomatic immunity does not extend to terrorism, and that is very bad news for Iran’s embassies. On February 4, 2021, a court in Antwerp, Belgium delivered a guilty verdict with 20 years of imprisonment in the case of Assadollah Assadi, a career Iranian diplomat who plotted a bombing attack against a major gathering of Iranian opposition members in France. The attack was thwarted by authorities across multiple countries, resulting in Assadi’s arrest, along with his co-conspirators.

The case’s details highlighted the Iranian regime’s terror-based foreign policy and how its policies threaten global peace and security. First, Assadi was the Third Counsel at the Iranian regime’s embassy in Vienna, but historically, he has ties with the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence.

According to documents obtained by German police, Assadi had made hundreds of trips to 11 European countries and had paperwork documenting cash payments made to dozens of Iranian operatives. “The trial of Assadollah Assadi is the tip of a massive terrorist iceberg,” said Struan Stevenson, a former European Parliament member. “As a diplomat, you can’t make hundreds of visits to different countries without permission from your ambassador. And the ambassador takes his command from Tehran. There’s no doubt that this plot was ordered by Khamenei, Rouhani, Zarif, and Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi.”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/02/spain-leftist-politician-praises-islamic-al-robert-spencer/

El HuffPost, which is what the Spanish language version of the hard-Left propaganda outfit the Huffington Post calls itself, on Wednesday tweeted a statement from Isabel Franco, a far-Left politician who is currently Vice President of the Region of Murcia and Regional Minister of Women, Equality, LGTBI, Families and Social Policy: “In Al-Ándalus three cultures coexisted. It was the Spanish monarchy that caused an enormous invasion, genocide and concealment.”

Well, of course. What else would you expect? What would have been surprising would have been Franco praising the Spanish monarchy and denigrating Islamic al-Andalus. But a Leftist politician of the twenty-first century praising an Islamic regime and denigrating Christian rulers is par for the course these days. Anything else would be “racist,” “bigoted,” “Islamophobic,” “xenophobic” and probably anti-trans or something as well.

If, however, Isabel Franco (pictured above) had been inclined to be honest, she would have plenty to apologize for. The History of Jihad From Muhammad to ISIS, the first and only comprehensive history of the 1,400-year jihad phenomenon worldwide in the English language, shows that Muslim Spain was anything but a model of multiculturalism and coexistence. In fact, it was miserable to live as a Christian there. Christians could never be sure that they would not be harassed. One contemporary account tells of priests being “pelted with rocks and dung” by Muslims while on the way to a cemetery. The dhimmis suffered severe economic hardship: Paul Alvarus, a ninth century Christian in Córdoba, complained about the “unbearable tax” that Muslims levied on Christians.