RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/democracy-dies-in-the-open-11605136283?mod=opinion_lead_pos3

Hong Kong’s “one country, two systems” form of government autonomy died this summer, and the Chinese Communist Party is now moving fast to crush its remnants. Beijing’s latest target is the Legislative Council and its pro-democracy lawmakers.

On Wednesday China’s legislature passed a resolution allowing Hong Kong authorities to remove lawmakers without judicial oversight. Hong Kong authorities quickly booted four pro-democracy legislators, including Dennis Kwok and Alvin Yeung, two brave defenders of an independent judiciary.

Hong Kong’s remaining pro-democracy lawmakers responded by resigning en masse. “Sooner or later we would all have been disqualified,” Democratic Party chairman Wu Chi-wai said. Unconditional allegiance to Beijing is now a requirement for office. At a news conference Wednesday, Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam said it is disqualifying for lawmakers to oppose the new national security law or to plan on “indiscriminately voting down” Beijing’s legislative agenda. Ms. Lam will go down in history for betraying her city.

The Communist Party long ago rigged LegCo, as the legislature is known, so democrats could never gain a majority. Pro-democracy lawmakers have nonetheless served their constituents by working to prevent or delay some of the worst legislation and appointees. This new resolution completes LegCo’s transformation into a rubber-stamp body. It represents “Beijing’s rule by decree in its ultimate form,” said Claudia Mo, one of the lawmakers who resigned in protest.

ttps://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2020/11/remdesivir-hydroxychloroquine-and-covid-19/

Has there ever been a worse public policy disaster than the response of almost all governments to COVID-19?

It is now clear that COVID-19, while very infectious, is no more lethal that various influenza epidemics, with an Infection Fatality Rate (IFR) of around 0.1 per cent. As I pointed out in Quadrant in March (“Logic, the First Casualty”), Stanford Professor of Epidemiology John Ioannidis correctly estimated the IFR for Covid as 0.125 per cent, this being the rate at which those infected perish. He also estimated the Case Fatality Rate (CFR) as about 1 per cent, this being the fatality rate of the cases being treated.

These estimates have proven to be accurate and comparable to those for seasonal influenza—and less than the 2 to 3 per cent CFR of the H1N1 influenza virus that caused the 2009 swine flu pandemic and less than the rate initially estimated by the WHO, which has not accepted the lower figure. While swine flu was not as infectious as Covid, governments did not close down societies and economies and trample civil liberties in response to the swine flu pandemic. Why have they with Covid?

There are several factors that help explain why. Media, both social and conventional, have inflated the perception of risk. Bad news sells, and the madness of crowds can now spread electronically.

The fact that the grim statistics, reported in a daily ritual, have been unreliable has not helped, with increased numbers often simply reflecting increased testing. The reporting of deaths has bordered on negligent, with those positive for Covid being registered as dying from Covid, despite (as the US Centers for Disease Control recently reported) 94 per cent of those dying with Covid having significant comorbidities (an average of 2.6 comorbidities each). Greater funding was made available for a Covid death, so there was an incentive to so record deaths. George Floyd, who died in police custody in Minneapolis, was positive for Covid and would have otherwise been counted as dying from Covid, had other causes not be assigned.

https://www.jns.org/iaea-says-iran-continues-to-violate-2015-nuclear-deal/?utm_sour

Tehran has also been enriching uranium up to a 4.5 percent purity, higher than the 3.67 percent allowed under the 2015 nuclear deal.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said on Wednesday that Iran is still in violation of the 2015 nuclear deal by continuing to increase its low-enriched uranium stockpile.

As of Nov. 2, Iran had a stockpile of 5,385.7 pounds of low-enriched uranium, up from 4,641.6 pounds reported on Aug. 25, reported AP, which obtained a confidential document distributed to IAEA member countries.

Iran has also been continuing to enrich uranium up to a 4.5 percent purity, higher than the 3.67 percent allowed under the deal, according to the IAEA report.

In March, the IAEA warned that Iran was tripling its production of enriched uranium and dramatically increased the number of machines used to enrich uranium and make more nuclear fuel at a faster pace.

Also in the new IAEA report, according to Reuters, Iran has installed advanced centrifuges in the underground Natanz uranium-enrichment facility. The 2015 deal stated that the centrifuges can only be used for first-generation IR-1 machines.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16751/china-ant-group-financial-system

Beijing has cast doubt on the soundness of China’s equity markets and, more broadly, on the long-term viability of the country’s private sector.

China is not big enough for two big personalities. Xi is building a personality cult, and so is Ma Yun, better known as Jack Ma to the international financial and business communities.

Ant’s lending volumes grew fast because the company was largely unregulated.

“The message is that no big private businessman will be tolerated on the mainland.” — Chen Zhiwu of Hong Kong University, Financial Times, November 6, 2020.

Xi demands absolute obedience, something incompatible with a modern financial system.

Investors in Hong Kong this week dumped more than $250 billion in Chinese tech stocks. Particularly hard hit were Alibaba Group, JD.com, Tencent, and Meituan Dianping.

The rout followed the stunning postponement of what would have been the largest initial public offering in history. Ant Group Co., Ltd., an Alibaba Group affiliate, was set, with the overallotment option, to raise $39.5 billion.

Investors were valuing the six-year-old company at $359 billion, making it worth more than American-based behemoth J.P. Morgan and the world’s largest bank by assets, the state-backed Industrial and Commercial Bank of China.

On November 3, Shanghai’s Nasdaq-like STAR Market and the Hong Kong Stock Exchange announced the suspension about 36 hours before the scheduled start of trading in Hong Kong. The unprecedented actions shocked domestic and international investors.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16741/iran-mullahs-celebrate

At the beginning, U.S. President Donald J. Trump pulled the US out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), commonly known as the Iran nuclear deal, which Iran never signed and which paves the way for Iran to have nuclear weapons.

Tehran’s diminishing resources have also caused Iranian leaders to cut funds to the Palestinian terror group Hamas and the Lebanese militant group, Hezbollah. Hamas was forced to introduce “austerity plans” while Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Iran’s proxy, Hezbollah, has also called on his group’s fundraising arm “to provide the opportunity for jihad with money and also to help with this ongoing battle.”

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani has already called for restoring the nuclear deal. It could well be a loss for continuing peace in the region and for finally restoring the violated Iranian people’s hoped-for human rights.

The Iranian regime has excitingly announced former U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden’s possible victory in the US presidential elections and is celebrating that the next US administration will, they hope, be from the Democrat Party.

Iranian authorities view even the chance that Biden might take over the White House as a definite win for Tehran. Hesameddin Ashena, an advisor to Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani, tweeted that Iranians “stood their ground bravely until that coward’s time [Donald Trump] came to leave”. Headlines in the state-controlled newspapers, which celebrated the news, included, “World without Trump!” (Aftabe Yazd newspaper), “Mr Withdrawal is Close to Being Kicked Out of White House”, “Go to Hell You Gambler!” (Sobhe Now newspaper) “Trump’s Card No Longer Valid for Media!” (Aftabe Yazd newspaper), “The Bankrupt US President Got Humiliated” (Mardom Salari newspaper), and “Trump Must Leave” (Donyaye Eghtesad newspaper).

The last three years has indeed been a nightmare for the Iranian regime and its proxies. No US administration before the current one has imposed such a draconian pressure on the mullahs, their rogue state and their allies.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/this-isnt-obamas-middle-east-11604963875?mod=opinion_featst_pos1

Even in the closing weeks of America’s presidential campaign, the grisly murder of French schoolteacher Samuel Paty made an impression. As part of a civics lesson, Mr. Paty showed his class of 13-year-olds the Charlie Hebdo caricatures of the prophet Muhammad. Soon afterward, Mr. Paty was attacked and beheaded in the street. President Emmanuel Macron, whose government has been moving right on law and order as the electoral competition with Marine Le Pen of the National Rally heats up, announced a series of measures aimed at limiting what he called “Islamist separatism.”

The reaction from Muslim religious and political leaders around the world ranged from supportive (the United Arab Emirates and some imams) to perfunctory (Kuwait and Saudi Arabia) to sulfurous, with Malaysian former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad helpfully tweeting that Muslims had the right to kill “millions of French people” in retribution for French colonialism.

But the most significant reaction came from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose country is embroiled in confrontations with France in the Eastern Mediterranean. “Macron needs mental treatment,” Mr. Erdogan said, calling for a Turkish boycott against French products. “What is the problem of this person Macron with Muslims and Islam?”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/11/why-biden-presidency-would-be-gift-iran-joseph-klein/

Unlike the Obama-Biden administration, President Trump saw right through the Iranian regime’s deceptive veneer all the way through to its malevolent core. Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran had the regime on its knees. If President Trump had been reelected, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and his henchmen would have had no choice but to agree to major concessions in order to get any sanctions relief.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s claim last week that “the next US administration will surrender to the Iranian nation” no matter who won the election was empty braggadocio. Behind the scenes, the Iranian regime did its best to interfere in the U.S. election on behalf of Joe Biden. Iran’s leaders have now reaped the fruits of their efforts as they look forward to the Biden-Harris administration’s return to the Obama-Biden administration’s appeasement policies.

On Sunday, after the media projected Biden as the election winner, Rouhani proclaimed, “The next US administration has now an opportunity to make up for the past mistakes and return to the path of commitment to international undertakings by respecting the global rules.” Joe Biden will almost certainly take Rouhani’s advice to heart, falling again for the Iranian regime’s siren song.

Expect Biden to immediately set about reversing President Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran. This will mean trying quickly to lift at least some of the harsh sanctions imposed by Trump to force the Iranian regime to the negotiating table, which Trump will reportedly be adding to every week until Biden’s inauguration on January 20, 2021. Biden has already proposed to “streamline channels for banking and public health assistance from other countries in response to the health emergency in Iran,” as if Iran’s brutal regime could give a hoot about the health of its people.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16732/pope-francis-encyclical-fratelli-tutti

The Pope, for instance, implies that the twilight of the planet’s centuries old diplomatic nation-state system has arrived, prompting the need for a more globalist political system. Regrettably, that usually brings with it no transparency, no accountability and no recourse. Think of the United Nations, the UN Human Rights Council, the International Criminal Court or the European Union.

In the Pope’s encyclical, the “stranger” is always a desperate, impoverished refugee seeking solace, never an aggressor with the will to conquer.

Although Francis may have been especially aware of his Muslim guests, Catholics must wonder if they, too, were included as part of the intended audience. There was simply little or no mention in the encyclical of core Catholic beliefs.

In truth, however, “Fratelli Tutti” seems more a contrived, secular attempt to fashion a model for the governance of humankind that could attract the support of believer and non-believer alike. Unfortunately, it may also rally those hoping to bring down Judeo-Christian civilization to assume that the West is unfurling a flag of surrender.

The Pope’s Encyclical “Fratelli Tutti” (“Brothers All”) sadly seems more a massive and unwieldy political document than a religious guide to the Catholic faithful. The encyclical’s intended audience appears to be secular world rather than people of faith. The 43,000-word tome contains almost no discussion of Catholic dogmas. Although the Pontiff’s diagnosis of the world’s ills seems accurate enough, unfortunately his proposed antidotes — equality of result rather than equality of opportunity and individual liberty, the bedrocks of Western democracies — would seriously threaten freedom.

The Pope, for instance, implies that the twilight of the planet’s centuries old diplomatic nation-state system has arrived, prompting the need for a more globalist political system. Regrettably, that usually brings with it no transparency, no accountability and no recourse. Think of the United Nations, the UN Human Rights Council, the International Criminal Court or the European Union.

The Pope denigrates the concept of nationalism by referring to it as “local narcissism.” His support for “open borders” would deny nations the right to sovereignty over their national territories. Pope Francis, a lifelong priest of the Jesuit order, appears to be calling for a system of international organizations that would possess the power to override the will of individual states and have the potential to become a global despotism.