RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/05/taiwan-deserves-united-states-support/

The U.S. must show its support for the democracy that defies the Chinese Communist Party.

Last week, Taiwan announced a major donation of over seven million face masks to the U.S., Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia in response to the ongoing coronavirus crisis. In Wisconsin, we experienced this generosity firsthand in the form of 100,000 surgical-grade masks, which will help keep our state healthy. This donation marked the third tranche of substantial international assistance from Taiwan, which stands in stark contrast to behavior of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) throughout the crisis.

The CCP’s contributions to the pandemic have inspired legislation holding the CCP legally liable and rapidly reducing supply-chain dependencies on China. These are solid steps, but in our new Cold War, the strategic center of gravity is not the CCP, but rather our allies and partners. As one Chinese diplomat wrote in 2012, “the core of competition between China and the United States will be to see who has more high-quality friends.”

It’s hard to have a more high-quality friend than Taiwan — a vibrant democracy under intense pressure that deserves our full support.

Unfortunately, support for Taiwan has been inconsistent. Unlike NATO’s crystal-clear Article V collective-defense commitment, the U.S. commitment to Taiwan has been muddled. Since the Carter administration, the United States has adopted a policy of “strategic ambiguity.” Once upon a time, proponents of this strategy may have told themselves that they were calming tensions by deterring both sides from precipitous action: Beijing could not count on our restraint if they opted for invasion, while Taipei could not count on our support if they declared independence.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16003/iran-venezuela-ties

Reports recently revealed that in the last week of April alone, the sanctioned Iranian airline, Mahan Air, with ties to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), made several flights to Venezuela. Reportedly, the Iranian regime delivered “parts, technicians, and gasoline additives to fix a major refinery in Venezuela,” and received nine tons of gold bars in return.

The United Nations, as usual in regards to every country other than Israel, remained silent as Mahan Air reportedly violated the UN Security Council Resolution 2231, which calls upon Iran “not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches using such ballistic missile technology.”

In addition, Venezuela has granted more than 173 passports to radical Islamists… The passports are able to be used for travel to North America and Europe.

Iran has been bypassing US sanctions amid the coronavirus crisis, and strengthening its ties with Venezuela.

Reports recently revealed that in the last week of April alone, the sanctioned Iranian airline, Mahan Air, with ties to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), made several flights to the South American nation. Reportedly, the Iranian regime delivered “parts, technicians, and gasoline additives to fix a major refinery in Venezuela,” and received nine tons of gold bars in return.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/more-trouble-looms-for-hong-kong-11589148219?mod=opinion_lead_pos4

Hong Kong’s political health took a turn for the worse last week, even as the city celebrated progress in its containment of coronavirus. Beijing knows that the rest of the world is distracted with the pandemic, and it is exploiting the opportunity to exert more control in Hong Kong.

On Wednesday China’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office denounced the protest movement as “a political virus in Hong Kong” and warned that Beijing would not “sit idly by with these recklessly demented forces.” The office’s new director, Xia Baolong, is known for making good on Beijing’s threats. Before taking Hong Kong, he oversaw the arrest of Christians, the demolition of churches and the toppling of crosses in Zhejiang Province.

On Friday pro-democracy and pro-Beijing lawmakers got into a physical altercation at the Legislative Council building. The tussle broke out over who will lead the powerful House Committee, but the underlying issue is whether pro-democracy lawmakers will be able to block legislation that would suppress speech by criminalizing disrespect of the national anthem. The scuffle ended with pro-democracy lawmaker Andrew Wan carried off on a stretcher by paramedics and with security forcibly ejecting other pro-democracy lawmakers.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-britain/britains-johnson-to-set-out-five-tier-coronavirus-warning-system-idUSKBN22M07D

LONDON (Reuters) – British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Sunday the coronavirus lockdown will not end yet, urging people to “stay alert” to the risks as he outlined plans to begin slowly easing measures that have closed down much of the economy for nearly seven weeks.

While his government was giving directions for England, it wants the United Kingdom’s other constituent nations – Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland – to take the same approach. But there were immediate divisions, with Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon saying she was sticking with the existing “stay at home” message.

Johnson announced a limited easing of restrictions, including allowing people to exercise outside more often and encouraging those who cannot work from home to return to their jobs.

“This is not the time simply to end the lockdown this week,” he said in a televised address. “Instead we are taking the first careful steps to modify our measures.”

Johnson’s government has faced criticism from opposition parties and others over its handling of the pandemic and the prime minister is wary of taking the brakes off too soon. Britain’s coronavirus death toll – 31,855 – is the second highest in the world, behind only the United States. The bulk of the cases and deaths have been in England.

The government’s decision to replace its “stay at home” slogan, drummed into the public for weeks, was criticised by opposition parties who called the new “stay alert” message too ambiguous.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15977/france-no-go-zones-riots

A few months ago, a police officer, Noam Anouar, who infiltrated Islamist circles… stated that no-go zones in France are now foreign enclaves on French territory. “The gangs operating there,” he wrote, “have formed a parallel economy based on drug trafficking. They consider themselves at war with France and with Western civilization. They act in cooperation with Islamist organizations, and define acts of predation and rampage as raids against infidels”. He noted that reclaiming these areas today would be complicated, costly, and involve calling in the army.

For years, successive French governments have chosen a policy of “willful blindness”: they simply behave as if they do not see what is going on. They do not even try to find solutions.

Saturday, April 18, 11 pm. Villeneuve-la-Garenne, a small town in the northern suburbs of Paris. A young man rides a motorcycle at high speed and hits the door of a police car. He breaks his leg. He is sent to the hospital. He does not have a driver’s license but does have a long criminal history. He was sentenced several times by the courts for drug trafficking, robbery with violence and sexual assault.

As soon as news of the accident is released, hostile messages about the police circulate on social media; and in a dozen cities in France, riots break out. The riots are continue for five days in a row. A police station in Strasbourg is attacked and set on fire. A school is nearly destroyed a few miles from Villeneuve-la-Garenne.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15999/italy-china-trojan-horse

Chinese leaders “believe they have a narrow window of strategic opportunity to strengthen their rule and revise the international order in their favor”. — Former U.S. National Security Advisor H. R. McMaster, Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World.

“Europe has now become the buffer zone for the confrontation between China and the United States”. — Pierre-Henri d’Argenson, Le Figaro, April 28, 2020.

Now, China is trying to dominate southern Europe’s infrastructure. China was already granted a license to run Greece’s largest seaport, Athens’ Piraeus harbor, which Beijing plans to turn into Europe’s biggest commercial harbor. Then China started to project its expansion in Italy’s ports, where four major ports are also in line for Chinese investments.

The People’s Bank of China… “has steadily amassed stakes above 2 percent (the disclosure threshold in Italy) in a slew of Italy’s largest shareholder-owned companies” China has also invested in strategic Italian energy entities….

This economic penetration will also have immense security consequences… Italy, which is being lured by the promise of a $3 billion Huawei investment in its telecommunications system, announced that it has no plans to stop Chinese telecom firms playing a role in the country’s future 5G network. It is a project that U.S. Attorney General William P. Barr defined a “monumental danger”.

Italy will see a collapse of its GDP and the explosion of its public debt… the highest since World War II. Beijing knows this and claims that “Italy has many economic problems, Europe is in crisis and the Belt and Road Initiative is the only major global investment plan”.

A few days after China had announced it was sending medical supplies to Italy, Chinese state media aired pictures of Italians on balconies and streets applauding the Chinese national anthem. “In Rome, with the Chinese anthem playing, some Italians chanted ‘Grazie, Cina!’ on their balconies, & their neighbors applauded along”, wrote Zhao Lijian, the spokesman for China’s foreign ministry who shamefully and wrongly suggested that the U.S. military had brought the Covid-19 to Wuhan.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16000/coronavirus-abuse-christians

“The Christian man said he begged for food to no avail. Farooq Masih, a 54-year-old Christian in Korangi, said that last Saturday, Abid Qadri, a member of Saylani Welfare, with other NGO members, handed out food cards in his area. But, when they got to Christian homes, they just moved on.” — Shafique Khokhar, AsiaNews.it, March 30, 2020

Millions of Christians living in northern Nigeria’s Kaduna State, “report they get six times smaller rations from the state than Muslim families. Believers we talked to shared that a Christian family of four receives a grossly inadequate ration of a single packet of noodles and one small plate of uncooked rice.” — Open Doors, April 17, 2020.

The situation for sub-Saharan Christians is further exacerbated by “[s]pecific targeting by Islamic radical groups like Boko Haram, ISIS, Fulani militants and the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) across the region has displaced many thousands of Christians.” Such Christians are now living in crowded and hard to reach refugee camps where they are “suffer[ing] intensely without water, sanitation and hygiene,” making them extra susceptible to contracting the deadly virus.

At a time when COVID-19 is showing the best of people — countless doctors, nurses, health care providers, truckers, philanthropic institutions and churches in America have stepped up beyond the call of duty, and certainly without consideration for things like race or religion — in much of the world, COVID-19 has merely occasioned more of the usual: hate for and persecution of supposedly contemptible “infidels,” particularly Christians.

Reports have appeared in recent weeks indicating that the coronavirus is furnishing a new pretext in the Islamic word to discriminate against, and even persecute, religious minorities, chiefly Christians.

According to an April 29 report, “in countries such as Ethiopia Christians are denied the resources of the community, which is mainly composed of Muslims. These minorities are excluded from society, making it difficult to provide them with help or support.” A separate report notes that in Muslim-majority Uzbekistan, Christians “have been denied aid because of their religion.”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15998/lebanese-choice

It may be a cliché to suggest that Lebanon is meant to be a Middle Eastern Switzerland, just as Uruguay is a haven of peace in South America, Singapore in Asia and Austria in Central Europe. Whenever Lebanon played that role it thrived. Whenever it diverged from that role, or was pushed out of it by foreign powers, it suffered.

To Ayatollah Ali Yunesi, an adviser to President Hassan Rouhani [of Iran], Beirut is one of four Arab capitals that “we now control.”

Lebanon’s interests today do not coincide with those of Iran. Lebanon needs stability and peace to revive its economy by attracting foreign investment, reviving tourism and developing itself as a service-based hub for international trade and high-tech industries. In contrast, Iran, as a revisionist power seeking to reshape the Middle East if not the whole world, thrives on tension and conflict.

One master wants Lebanon to be a beach, the other sees it as a bunker. In real life, as opposed to theater, at some point Harlequin must choose.

As Lebanese protests continue, albeit with varying degrees of intensity, speculation over what has caused the current crisis is also rife.

The list of woes that afflict Lebanon is long.

There is a banking crisis caused by a Ponzi-like scheme introduced by the Central Bank three years ago to attract foreign money. Recent falls in the price of oil have led to a sharp drop on remittances by Lebanese working in oil-rich countries but building their egg-nests back home. A bloated civil service, created by politicians trying to buy votes or curry favor with their respective sects by inventing unnecessary jobs, is becoming too costly for an ailing economy. Corruption, the bane of many developing nations, has gone beyond the limits of an aberration to become almost a way of life.

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/05/09/choice-for-iranian-prisoners-die-silently-or-die-in-the-open/

‘Reza, did you hear how many people got Corona in Evin?”

A chill ran up my spine as I read this message from an Iranian friend on the popular Telegram app. The reference to Evin Prison took me back to one and half years ago when I was imprisoned there for my political activities.

Evin, in northern Tehran, is one of the most notorious prisons in Iran, and it houses many of the country’s political prisoners. From what I knew about its awful conditions, it was very easy for me to imagine how the corona outbreak would amplify the preexisting human catastrophe.

Iran is one of the countries most severely affected by corona. Government aid to the people has been close to zero. And prisoners, especially political prisoners, are defenseless.

I, was 29 years old and an activist with the main Iranian opposition movement, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (MEK) in the summer of 2018, when the Ministry of Intelligence had me and a close friend arrested for installing a banner depicting Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, president-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (which includes the MEK as its main constituent organization) on a major bridge in Tehran. After our arrest, we were immediately taken to solitary confinement in Ward 209 of Evin Prison.

I spent months in a 6-meter solitary confinement cell with a dirty carpet, no sanitation, and a constantly dripping tap that sounded to me like the ticking of a clock. It seemed to count down the seconds until the next time I would be taken for a long interrogation, at which point I never knew what fate awaited me.

Interrogations could come at any time, day or night, as could intrusive checks by prison guards. Throughout my detention, I never once had access to the open air of the yard. All this multiplied my sense of limitation, especially in the solitary confinement.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/carlieporterfield/2020/05/08/heres-what-the-75th-anniversary-of-ve-day-looks-like-during-coronavirus/#38e2527f5d43

Friday marked the 75th anniversary of Nazi Germany’s surrender to the Allied forces and the end of World War II in Europe, but the coronavirus pandemic cast a shadow over memorials as the virus rendered large-scale celebrations too dangerous—especially for the war’s surviving veterans, now mostly in their 90s.

On Friday in Britain, Prince Charles led the country in a moment of silence, and military jets were flown over the U.K.’s four capital cities—and while residents are largely still housebound under the nationwide stay-at-home order, many families held tea parties, 40s-style, to mark the date.

In Paris, President Emmanuel Macron laid a wreath at the Arc de Triomphe at a sparse memorial service—the nearby Avenue des Champs-Élysées, usually bustling with shoppers and tourists, was nearly empty.

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Chancellor Angela Merkel and other government leaders kept their distance as they laid wreaths at Berlin’s Neue Wache, Germany’s memorial to victims of war.

President Donald Trump was joined by eight World War II veterans for a wreath-laying ceremony in Washington, D.C., but observed social distancing measures—with the youngest veteran in attendance clocking in at age 96, the group is particularly at risk for coronavirus complications.