RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/the-mysterious-explosions-at-irans-nuclear-facilities/

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Three incidents, including two explosions at nuclear facilities, have shaken Iran in recent days. Were they connected? Were they caused by accidents or were they carried out by a foreign power? If the latter, were they executed via cyberattack? And what will be their domestic and international implications?

Early in the morning on June 26, Tehran was rocked by a huge explosion at the Parchin military complex, 30 kilometers southeast of the Iranian capital. Some media outlets attributed the blast to Parchin’s role in the development of nuclear weapons, which were reaffirmed when Iran’s secret nuclear research archive was smuggled to Israel and exposed in 2018. The regime’s choice of Parchin as the site at which to conduct nuclear experiments was probably due to the fact that ammunition, explosives, and solid rocket fuel were produced there.
As early as 2012, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) asked the Iranian authorities to allow its inspectors to tour Parchin following information it had received about nuclear activity at the facility. Its request was rejected. The Iranians then demolished the buildings where the suspect activity had allegedly taken place and even razed the area around them.
In September 2015, after signing the JCPOA nuclear agreement, Tehran finally allowed IAEA inspectors to tour the area and take soil samples. Despite the regime’s thorough sanitizing of the site, anthropogenic (human-processed) uranium particles were found that could only have been produced during “cold test” explosions of nuclear devices.

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/china/2020/07/clive-hamiltons-brave-and-urgent-alarm/

Last year an agent for Chinese printing companies – which have the most advanced and cheapest production facilities in the world — handed Australian publishing houses a list of words and topics that could not appear in any books that were to be printed in China. The overwhelming majority of these books are for markets – including Australia — outside China itself, which has become the default printer globally.

Naturally, the names of Chinese dissidents, such as Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo, who died excruciatingly while still incarcerated in China in 2017, are high on this list. But it also includes those of the country’s paramount leader Xi Jinping and his muse and propagandist Wang Huning, predecessors Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, and references to Tiananmen 1989, the Hong Kong protests, or the Xinjiang conflict, as well as to the island groups in the South China Sea.

This is one of the myriad intriguing and concerning anecdotes replete in the new book by Clive Hamilton, co-written with Mareike Ohlberg, Hidden Hand: Exposing How the Chinese Communist Party Is Reshaping the World.

The challenges that are aligned globally against freedom, democracy and the rule of law – public values which 30 years ago appeared, as the Soviet Union disintegrated, to have “won” — are today legion. But the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has emerged in the last few years as by far the most significant, due to its immense economic and military capacity, its unparalleled and unconstrained surveillance and control technologies, its purposefulness… and its great institutional success. This was underlined on July 1 by the publication of the extraordinarily comprehensive and far-reaching “security” legislation effectively bringing Hong Kong fully within the PRC’s direct control – marking another great step forward by Xi, whose progress has persisted, unhindered in its thrust by the occasional burst of Western rhetoric or of temporarily inconvenient trade gestures.

The USSR posed nothing like the challenge China does today. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) consumed a vast amount of time and energy in reviewing what went wrong for its former “big brother” Russian party, and concluded essentially that it failed because it conceded ground, it liberalised, it lost control of history, including by permitting criticism of its great dictator Joseph Stalin.

Xi Jinping, the Chinese party’s general secretary since November 2012, has instead doubled down on core communist values. On July 23 next year, he will lead the celebration of the centenary of the party – whose period in untrammelled power, 70 years, has already surpassed that of the Russian party.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16174/iran-spies-assassinations

The Iranian regime has been involved in assassinations, terror plots, and terrorist attacks in more than 40 countries.

While the Iranian regime continues its assassinations and terrorist plots in the West, the EU and the UN — which it is time for the US to defund — remain silent.

Another spy from the Iranian regime, Mohammad Davoudzadeh Loloei, 40, has been sentenced to prison in a European court — this time, Denmark — for being an accessory to the attempted murder of one or more individuals who are opponents of the Iranian regime. What is unusual is that this is all taking place while Europe’s leaders continue to pursue a policy of appeasement with the ruling mullahs of Iran.

According to Roskilde District Court, in Denmark, Loloei had collected information on a dissident, so far unnamed, and given it to Iran’s intelligence service, who planned to murder the man. The information included photos of the target’s house, street and surroundings. “The court found that the information was collected and passed on to a person working for an Iranian intelligence service, for use by the intelligence service’s plans to kill the exile,” the court’s statement read.

The public prosecutor, Soeren Harbo, pointed out that the Iranian spy has received a permanent entry ban and would also be expelled from Denmark after serving his sentence. Harbo added that “It’s a historic case. And it’s a powerful message to (foreign) intelligence services: they have to handle their conflicts among themselves and stop involving us.”

Remarkably, this case involving the Iranian regime’s intelligence service carrying out espionage and attempting to assassinate its opponents abroad is not a rare one. The Iranian regime has been involved in assassinations, terror plots, and terrorist attacks in more than 40 countries.

Last fall, in November 2019, another dissident, Massoud Molavi, who ran a social media channel on Telegram criticizing the Iranian regime and exposed corruption in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, was gunned down while walking on the streets of Istanbul.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16195/slavery-africa-middle-east

For the intersectional activists, the US is the world’s biggest oppressor — not China, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, or Iran.

“What the media do not tell you is that America is the best place on the planet to be black, female, gay, trans or what have you. We have our problems and we need to address those. But our society and our systems are far from racist”. — Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Twitter, June 9, 2020.

“The new anti-racism is racism disguised as humanism (…) It implies that every white person is bad… and that every black person is a victim”. — Abnousse Shalmani, born in Tehran, now living in Paris, to Le Figaro, June 12, 2020.

“America looks different if you grew up, as I did, in Africa and the Middle East”. — Ayaan Hirsi Ali, The Wall Street Journal, June 26, 2020.

It is high time for the United States to stop funding the United Nations…. The United Nations is now being used to perpetuate injustice, not stop it.

Real slave traders and racists — those who believe Western societies and values should not exist at all — most likely look at the current Western self-flagellation and cheer their approval.

The United States abolished slavery 150 years ago, and has affirmative action for minorities. It is the country that elected a Black president, Barack Obama — twice! Yet, a new movement is toppling one historic monument after another one, as if the US is still enslaving African-Americans. Activists in Washington DC even targeted an Emancipation Memorial, depicting President Abraham Lincoln, who paid with his life for freeing slaves.

Today slavery still exists in many parts of Africa and Middle East, but the self-flagellating Western public is obsessively focused only on the Western past of African slavery rather than on real, ongoing slavery, which is alive and well — and ignored. For today’s slaves, there are no demonstrations in the streets, no international political pressure, and virtually no articles in the media.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16194/politically-corrected-paris

Of the 5,400 streets in greater Paris, 287 are named after persons or events with colonial, imperial, or ideological bearings that clash with political correctness, the fashionable ideology of champagne and caviar leftists.

Paris is dotted with old buildings, museums, offices, barracks, schools and exhibition sites associated with events that would anger the politically correct.

Black Americans are under-represented. Martin Luther King has a park in a down-market neighborhood. But he wasn’t BLM enough. He emphasized equal citizenship, not skin color.

Ah! Rewriting history!

Caught in the Davy Jones locker room, a civilization may dream of … a device to reel back the past like a film and edit it as you please.

With bookshops closed during Covid-19 lockdown I was obliged to re-read books I had read before. Among them was Lamartine’s “Graziella”, the journal of his six-month stay in Naples. A love story, the novel also talks of the repression of Italian freedom fighters who try to end French occupation under Marechal Murat, one of Napoleon’s generals, as their king.

A stone’s throw from our place is the Boulevard Murat, named after the man who crucified Italian patriots.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16175/turkey-deporting-protestant-christians

Dozens of Protestant Christian families, according to the Association of Protestant Churches, have been asked to leave Turkey or have not been allowed to enter the country — all based on trumped-up charges, such as “being a threat to national security”.

“According to the court, Turkey’s intelligence agency has a classified file on me that even our lawyer has been unable to review. According to this file, I am considered a threat to public order and security despite the fact that there is no legal complaint or court action against me.” — Carlos Madrigal, spiritual leader, the Istanbul Protestant Church Foundation.

“Are Turkish citizens who are Protestant Christians next?” — Association of Protestant Churches.

An alarming practice targeting Protestant Christians in Turkey has been brought to the attention of the public by the country’s Protestant community and its organizations.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16098/germany-antisemitism

The German government’s new report flies in the face of major EU reports… German statistics on anti-Semitism have been the object of criticism for quite some time.

“The majority of [anti-Semitism] cases in Berlin are attributed to right-wing extremists — without evidence…” — Die Welt, May 7, 2019.

“For a long time, experts have criticized the attribution of the majority of cases to far-right perpetrators… and that too little attention is paid to other groups of perpetrators, such as those from Islamist and other Muslim circles”. — Die Welt, May 7, 2019.

Yet, despite problematic evidence and flawed statistics, Interior Minister Horst Seehofer is still claiming that virtually all anti-Semitism comes from the far-right. Why?

Despite all these measures, anti-Semitic crime in Germany is the highest it has been in the past two decades. This news alone should raise concerns in Germany that hate-speech laws such as the NetzDG, while severely limiting free speech, are not working. It should also concern other EU countries, such as France, that are looking to Germany as an example to follow.

Almost all anti-Semitic crimes in Germany in 2019 were committed by right-wing extremists, according to a recently published government report, “Politically Motivated Crime in 2019.” In the report, “politically motivated crimes” are divided into right-wing crimes, left-wing crimes, crimes motivated by foreign ideology, crimes motivated by religious ideology and unassigned crimes.

According to the report, anti-Semitic crimes were 13% higher in 2019 than in 2018, with 2,032 anti-Semitic crimes committed in 2019, the highest number in Germany since 2001. According to the report, 93.4% of those crimes were committed by right-wing extremists.

“The biggest threat is still the threat from the right,” Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said following the release of the crime report. “We must remain alert and tackle it. It is an order of magnitude that accompanies us with concern, with great concern.”

The German government’s new report flies in the face of major EU reports: In November 2018, the EU’s Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) published a report, “Antisemitism – Overview of data available in the European Union 2007–2017,” which quoted the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) as stating that in 2017:

“The main perpetrators of antisemitic incidents are ‘Islamists’ and radicalised young Muslims, including schoolchildren, as well as neo-Nazis and sympathisers of extreme-right and, in some cases, extreme-left groups”.

Germany was among the countries surveyed.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/07/red-china-moves-hong-kong-michael-finch/

I was fortunate enough to be in Hong Kong on July 1, 1997, traveling with a group headed by the estimable Bruce Herschensohn.  It was an extraordinary, if bittersweet trip, seeing the British ships sail out of Hong Kong harbor on the evening of July 1st.  The lowering of the Union Jack across the city allowed a moment of great sadness, a passing of an era, given way to a future of trepidation and worry.

On the trip, we were honored to meet the politician and freedom fighter, Martin Lee.  Lee was just recently arrested and freed, but will now, almost certainly, be under threat of harassment and further arrests.  William McGurn, then senior editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review, also spoke to us, offering some hope, but tinged with warning.  That week marked a pivotal moment in history, one that anyone present in Hong Kong at the time will never forget.

Promises and guarantees were made; Hong Kong was given 50 years of freedom, under the now-infamous “one country, two systems” policy of administration.  And, indeed, it did work.  For just over 20 years, Hong Kong was the gateway and engine that helped propel China to a remarkable economic take off, lifting millions out of poverty.  Hong Kong was the portal for the rest of the world into China, and the city continued to thrive.  Rule of law, security of contracts, an independent judiciary and a free press were all legacies of British rule. 

All of this, however, was snuffed out in recent days with the new national-security law imposed on Hong Kong by mainland China.  Simply put, Hong Kong has lost its freedom. 

It certainly didn’t go down without a fight; the past months have seen countless protests and demonstrations from the freedom-loving people of Hong Kong.  It has been a sight to behold, watching thousands of demonstrators in the streets of Hong Kong carrying American flags, speaking the words of freedom and liberty.  It is awe-inspiring to see that America is still the beacon that all look to, a light of freedom that casts its radiance to every corner of the globe. 

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16151/india-religious-freedom

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom apparently based its India report on the versions of evidently hostile non-governmental organizations and media outlets.

If US President Donald J. Trump is determined to promote religious freedom the world over, he also needs to call upon other nations vastly more abusive than India is to “end religious persecution.'”

It is astonishing to note that the International Religious Freedom (IRF) Report, released by the US Department of State on June 10, 2020, ranks India on its lowest grade, “Countries of Particular Concern (CPC).” The report recommends that the US State Department meet people from India’s “religiously persecuted” communities and slap sanctions on the agencies and officials responsible for the predicament of the affected.

The report also groups India with countries, such as China, Iran, North Korea, and Saudi Arabia, which have long been notorious for their religious freedom rights violations. It says that India’s newly passed Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) makes the Muslims in the country “bear the indignities and consequences of potential statelessness.” It also claims that the Narendra Modi government allows “campaigns of harassment and violence” against Muslims and other religious minorities.

The report suggests that the government-perpetuated discrimination against religious minorities in India can be discerned in the newly changed status of the Muslim-majority Jammu and Kashmir region, the enactment of the cow-slaughter and anti-conversion laws, the inflammatory remarks of some Hindu-majority parties against minority communities, and the Supreme Court’s decision in the Babri mosque case. The report also alleges that in February this year “, three days of violence erupted in New Delhi with mobs attacking Muslim neighborhoods.” Finally, it adds that innocent members of minority communities “are being punished under India’s cow protection laws” that prohibit the export or import of beef.