RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/12/what-hell-happened-boris-johnson-katie-hopkins/

It’s what many of you ask me the most, and the question I feel most ashamed to answer.

Partly because I don’t have proof of what I am about to tell you. But also because I was once the one banging on about how blooming marvelous he was and why he was lined up to be my fourth husband (or was it fifth?).

Not only did I announce this publicly, but the last time I saw him in person I actually reminded him personally that he was destined to be Mr Hopkins. (No, that was not fear in his eyes; he had indigestion. Probably.)

If you are reading this, Boris Johnson, please know that the offer of my hand in marriage has been rescinded. You have been nothing but a huge disappointment and, as populist leaders go, are about as much use as a potato in a wig.

I did try to answer the “What the hell happened?” question six months ago, though looking back on my answer I fear I was being too easy on the man, blaming his failings on his inability to work the COVID problem, rather than on Boris himself. Six months on I realize it is the weakness of Johnson, not the strength of the COVID conspiracy, that is the issue.

One minute he was crashing along like a sexually profligate rhino looking for a Brexit mate, full of Get Brexit Done, and doing splendid things like proroguing (suspending) Parliament and firing treacherous MPs who were working AGAINST the will of the people.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16816/mozambique-terrorism-islamists

Radical Muslims from Kenya and Tanzania are transforming what was initially a low-intensity ethnic rebellion, into a full-fledged Islamic jihad against Mozambique’s central government.

Ansar al-Sunna, estimated to consist of about 20 cells operating throughout northeast Mozambique, is responsible for the murders of about 2,000 people, mostly civilians.

The terrorist group has driven approximately 200,000 people from their homes and burdened the majority Christian country’s central government.

The Islamic State’s Central African Province may have bigger plans for Mozambique’s Ansar al-Sunna. If the terrorists are able to establish an Emirate under Sharia in Cabo Delgado Province, it could serve as a jihadi model, threatening the stability of other states in southern Africa. Malawi, Zimbabwe, South Africa, as well as Africa’s Indian Ocean states of the Comoros and Madagascar, could be targeted.

Jihadists in northern Mozambique have intensified their military operations this year in an apparent attempt to establish an Islamic Emirate in the province of Cabo Delgado. The Islamist insurgency, which began in October 2017, remained below the radar until recently. The escalating violence, however, has become a security concern for Mozambique’s regional neighbors, including South Africa, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya and Somalia. Radical Muslims from Kenya and Tanzania are transforming what was initially a low-intensity ethnic rebellion, into a full-fledged Islamic jihad against Mozambique’s central government.

Ansar al-Sunna (Supporters of Sunni Tradition), aka Ahlu wa Jamo, is affiliated with the Islamic State’s Central African Province and is inspired, in part, by Somalia’s leading terrorist organization, Al-Shabaab. Ansar al-Sunna, estimated to consist of about 20 cells operating throughout northeast Mozambique, is responsible for the murders of about 2,000 people, mostly civilians. These martyred innocents are largely from the same ethnic Kimwani tribe as their murderers, who reside in villages in Cabo Delgado Province. The terrorist group has driven approximately 200,000 people from their homes and burdened the majority Christian country’s central government.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16812/iran-mullahs-want-nuclear-deal

Iran’s mullahs love the nuclear deal because of its fundamental flaws, especially the sunset clauses that remove restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program after the deal expires soon. The nuclear deal, rather than preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, as it was falsely touted to do, in fact paves the way for Tehran to become a legitimized nuclear state.

With the nuclear deal, the regime would gain global legitimacy, making it even more difficult to hold Iran’s leaders accountable for any malign behavior or terror activity across the world.

Finally, Iran’s ruling clerics want immediately to rejoin the nuclear deal because it would again alienate other governments in the Middle East and inevitably lead to a worsening of relations between the US and its traditional allies, especially Israel, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states.

This flawed deal, in favor of Iran, failed to recognize the rightful concerns of other countries in the region about Iran’s potential nuclear capability, missile proliferation or funding of violent proxies — both within and next door to their territories.

Iran’s ruling mullahs, who are celebrating presumptive President-Elect Joe Biden’s possible presidency in 2021, are already calling on him to rejoin the 2015 nuclear deal, which, incidentally, Iran never signed.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani — already urging the next US administration, which he hopes is the Biden administration — also pointed out, according to the state-run IRNA agency:

“Now, an opportunity has come up for the next U.S. administration to compensate for past mistakes and return to the path of complying with international agreements through respect of international norms.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif also advised Biden on Twitter to abandon President Trump’s Iran policy of maximum pressure and rejoin the nuclear deal.

The Trump administration, after pulling out of the nuclear deal, imposed significant pressure politically and economically on the Iranian regime and re-imposed sanctions on the mullahs.

https://asiatimes.com/author/david-p-goldman/

Beijing’s warning to fintech and property firms to raise equity and pay debts will hit stocks now but lift their long term prospects
Beijing’s warning to fintech and property firms to raise equity and pay debts will hit stocks now but lift their long term prospects

China’s economy and stocks have outperformed Western counterparts during the Covid recession. Image: Twitter

China’s regulators are fixing the roof while the sun is shining. With the economy in full rebound from the second-quarter Covid recession, Beijing has warned fintech and property companies to raise more equity and pay down debt.

That’s good news for China’s financial system but mixed news for some of this year’s best-performing stocks, including food-delivery service Methuan and smartphone maker Xiaomi. Financial stocks, by contrast, turned in their best relative performance of 2020 during the past month.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16796/arabs-warn-biden-do-not-embolden-hezbollah

The message they [the nationals of Lebanon] are sending to a new US administration is: The Lebanese people are hoping that you will help them get rid of Hezbollah. Cozying up to Iran would further embolden Hezbollah and allow it to destroy Lebanon by turning it into an Iranian-controlled colony.

“The Lebanese people… are being held hostage today by a militia that is financed by Iran, whose weapons are coming from Iran, and even whose leader, Hassan Nasrallah, is stating clearly and publicly that he takes orders from Iran.” — Samy Gemayel, leader of the Christian Kataeb Party, kataeb.org, November 23, 2020

“Hezbollah is the only party in Lebanon that has 20,000 soldiers on the ground….it can do a lot to make our democracy totally fictive. Today, we are being treated as hostages, and therefore the international community must help us.” — Samy Gemayel.

Rabi’s expressed hope that Biden would refuse to follow the policies of former President Barack Obama toward Iran. “This mistake needs to be corrected,” Rabi wrote, referring to Obama’s policy of appeasement toward Iran. “Correcting it can only be done by adopting a policy different from the Obama policy.”

The Lebanese and Arab warnings about a possible return to the nuclear deal with Iran and the resulting empowerment of Hezbollah need to be taken seriously by the new US administration. The Lebanese and Arabs are trying to tell Biden what they and the Trump administration have known for the past few years, namely, that Iran and its proxies — such as Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Houthis — are poised to wreak havoc in the Middle East.

The Iran-backed Hezbollah terror organization in Lebanon will be the first to celebrate if and when a Biden administration returns to the 2015 nuclear deal between the world superpowers and Iran.

Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, has called on Biden to give Iran more money and return to the nuclear deal. “Now, an opportunity has come up for the next US administration to compensate for past mistakes and return to the path of complying with international agreements through respect of international norms,” Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency quoted Rouhani as saying.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16811/iran-fakhrizadeh-killing

Under the slogan “Death to America”, Iran has been at war with the US, Israel and their Western allies since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, using proxy groups to kill hundreds of Americans in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and other places; and to launch terror attacks across the Middle East, Europe, the US and Latin America.

Mr Fakhrizadeh was a brigadier general in the IRGC and therefore not only a senior military commander in a country at war with the US and its allies but also a proscribed international terrorist.

Iran will never abandon what it considers its absolute right to become a nuclear-armed state, not under the current regime nor any future regime…. It has lied to the IAEA and the archive even sets out in detail the ways in which it has deceived the inspectors.

Despite claims to the contrary, the JCPOA was never going to prevent a nuclear armed Iran… Its sunset clauses meant that at best the deal might have delayed Tehran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons for a few years…. Any return to the JCPOA by a Biden White House, as is being pushed by Mr Brennan and other prospective administration officials, will not see a strengthened deal but more likely an even weaker one.

Mr Brennan and the European supporters of his argument seem to believe that Iran can be contained by appeasement and negotiation rather than military strength and political will. The path advocated by the proponents of appeasement can only lead to infinitely greater bloodshed, violence and suffering than the death of a proscribed terrorist on the streets of Iran.

With unfailing predictability, EU external affairs spokesman Peter Sano as well as other European Iran-appeasers rushed to condemn the targeted killing on November 27 of Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh. In doing so they exhibited shocking disregard for the death, destruction and suffering likely to be inflicted by the totalitarian Iranian regime utilising the pernicious expertise of Mr Fakhrizadeh.

From across the Atlantic they were joined by, among others, former CIA Director John O. Brennan, who described the killing as “state-sponsored terrorism” and “a flagrant violation of international law”. Yet Mr Brennan was in the White House Situation Room in 2011 when the US launched an operation to kill Usama bin Laden on Pakistani sovereign territory. Presumably he was not whispering into President Barack Obama’s ear that SEAL Team Six were violating international law.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16784/persecution-of-christians-october

One of the men captured confessed that he was “promised a monthly 2000 dollar payment for fighting against ‘kafirs’ in Artsakh, and an extra 100 dollar for each beheaded “kafir.” (Kafir, often translated as “infidel,” is Arabic for non-Muslims who fail to submit to Islamic authority, which makes them enemies by default.) — Armen Press, November 1, 2020, Armenia/Azerbaijan/Turkey.

“It is not possible to get justice in this part of Somalia where almost everyone is a Muslim. We are being hunted down like wild animals because of putting our faith in Issa [Jesus].” — The father of a 7-year-old boy who was beaten and hospitalized, Morning Star News, October 30, 2020, Somalia.

“A sexual act with a minor is felony even if she is willing. The court has validated a rape despite the Sindh Child Marriage Restraint Act 2014 that punishes contractors of child marriage with up to three years’ imprisonment…. What is the future of minority girls in Pakistan?” — Samson Salamat, the Christian chairman of an interreligious organization, Union of Catholic Asian News, October 28, 2020, Pakistan.

“As an Egyptian, I have rights—including the right to see my daughter and sit with her and make sure she is okay. If she wishes to follow another path [Islam], that is her right, but my right is to see her…. She is not some “chicken” I can forget about… As for the video, I am a father and know well how my daughter talks, and she [appeared] terrified… Is it that hard for the Egyptian police to return the girl?” — Coptic Solidarity, October 6, 2020, Egypt.

The following are among the abuses that Muslims inflicted on Christians throughout the month of October 2020:

Slaughtered Christians and Terrorized Churches

France: On October 29, a Muslim man who wielded a knife entered the Notre Dame Cathedral of Nice and, while shouting “Allahu Akbar” [“Allah is greatest”], beheaded a Christian woman and stabbed two others to death. According to one report:

“Married Nadine Devillers, 60, was the first person attacked by Tunisian knifeman Brahim Aoussaoui, 21, who slit her throat near the baptismal font. After he tried to decapitate Devillers [other reports state the beheading was complete], Aoussaoui hacked 54-year-old sacristan Vincent Loques to death as he prepared for the first Mass of the day. Brazilian-born Simone Barreto Silva, 44, was then stabbed multiple times but managed to escape the church, running to a nearby burger bar where she succumbed to her injuries. The mother-of-three’s last words to paramedics were: ‘Tell my children that I love them’. On arrival, French police shot Aoussaoui 14 times as he screamed ‘Allahu Akbar’ … a phrase he kept shouting even after being sedated and put into an ambulance.”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16645/eu-pact-migration-asylum

The question at the core of the internal EU conflict over migration in Europe is not practical but political: whether the EU should take any migrants at all. On that question, the European Commission and the Central and Eastern European countries could not be further apart.

The proposed system invariably gives rise to multiple questions about the practical viability of the proposed system. Will frontline states become efficient at screening migrants? Will the planned increased border control work? How, exactly, are widespread, years-long people-smuggling and human trafficking by gangs who profit immensely from it, going to be stopped?

“The big gamble is that you are betting on all members states each living up to their part of the responsibility…. it only takes a few states not living up [to] their commitments and then the entire system breaks down.” — Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen, professor of migration and refugee law at the University of Copenhagen, euronews.com, October 8, 2020.

“[W]e must ensure that the external borders of the EU and the Schengen Area remain perfectly sealed along all sections… Though it appears under a different name in the European Commission’s new package of proposals on migration and asylum, the migrant quota is still there, and Hungary opposes it, along with Poland and the Czech Republic.” — Zoltan Kovacs, Hungary’s Secretary of State for International Communication and Relations.

The European Commission has proposed a new Pact on Migration and Asylum for the European Union in the hope that it will solve the deep-seated political crisis that the issue of migration continues to pose in the EU.