RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15920/iran-un-human-rights-council

One of the worst examples we can identify as a conscious distortion of reality is the way in which the UN Human Rights Council, in its February-March 2020 five-year report on the Islamic Republic of Iran, lavished praise on the despotic regime.

Other extreme forms of punishment used in Iran are equally appalling: Execution by stoning, Execution by hanging, Execution by firing squad, Execution by beheading, Execution by throwing from a height, Amputation, Blinding, Flogging. – United Against Nuclear Iran

Yet many people who boycott Israel refuse to boycott Iran. The irony is mind-boggling.

There are times when even the most steeled among us are shocked by things others say or do. For example, people who insist against overwhelming evidence that Hitler and the Nazis were good people or that the Führer never intended to kill the Jews. Individuals who, again against a massive body of evidence, deny where the coronavirus began; or, though their numbers are relatively small, the percentages of Muslims who apparently still support the Islamic State (ISIS).

One of the worst examples we can identify as a conscious distortion of reality is the way in which the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), in its February-March 2020 five-year report on the Islamic Republic of Iran, lavished praise on the despotic regime. A majority (85%) of the countries contributing to this travesty of the truth made a mockery of human rights values by treating the Islamic Republic as a shining example of those values in action — something, as we shall see, it has never been. According to UN Watch:

https://www.memri.org/reports/syrian-author-while-rest-world-sanctifies-life-we-arabs-sanctify-death

 
In an article in the weekly Enab Baladi, identified with the Syrian opposition, author and journalist Khatib Badla harshly condemned the sanctification of death in Arab society. The Arab leaders, he said, have long been cultivating the ancient Islamic concept of shahada (martyrdom) and encouraging their people to die for the regime, while other governments in the world have sanctifed life and promoted the security and well being of their citizens. He added that the Arab culture of death leads only to ruin and destruction, and wondered if a day will ever come when the Arabs finally embrace the culture of life.

The following are translated excerpts from his article: [1]

“Our [source of] hope is death. The life-loving nations deserve our appreciation and affection. The governments and national institutions in their countries work night and day to provide them with security, dignity and wellbeing, so they can get the most out of life, and if  a citizen is close to death, [the authorities] will mobilize and do everything they can to prolong his life, if only for a couple more hours…

“Conversely, we [Arabs] have a trait that distinguishes us from all the other peoples of the world, which is a love of death. We dream of it, regard it as a source of inspiration and think about it every day. We love death and love the dead. Instead of hoping for longevity, for [a life of] giving and loving, we say, with defeatism… ‘God, [help me] go to battle and reach my grave. This is in addition to the grand slogans we [like to chant], such as: ‘death to America,’ ‘better death than humiliation’ and ‘seek death and you shall be given  life [in the next world]’…

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/2020/04/belgium-charges-3-commemorating-holocaust-daniel-greenfield/

Those who fail to learn from the past, are condemned to repeat it as grim farce.,

Three men who placed a wreath at a Holocaust monument in Belgium were charged with violating the country’s emergency measures to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

The men, including a City Council member from the town of Boortmeerbeek, were notified of a police investigation against them last week after laying a wreath on April 19 at a local monument commemorating the 1943 hijacking by resistance fighters of a train transporting Jews from Belgium to be murdered at Auschwitz.

On Friday, Belgium lifted some restrictions on movement, ending its lockdown. But gatherings and celebrations are still prohibited, leading to the police action against the three men, who are all members of the National Combatants Organization of Belgium, the Belga news agency reported.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/is-canadas-response-to-covid-19-led-by-china-sympathizers/

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks during a news conference in Ottawa on May 31, 2018. (Patrick Doyle/The Canadian Press via AP)

The controversy over Canada’s Public Chief Health Officer Theresa Tam continues to fester. Her lack of consistency, credibility, and competence—the three Cs of responsible authority—is a matter of public record. As I wrote previously, Tam has become the face of the anti-COVID task force. But she remains something of an enigma, including her date of birth, her actual place of birth and the dates of her degrees.

What do we know? We know that she initially downplayed the scope of the disease. We know that she is intimately associated with the World Health Organization as one of seven physicians who sit on its oversight committee. We know that the WHO operates as an arm of the People’s Republic and that its Director-General Tedros Adhanon Ghebreyesus has no medical expertise, is an ardent lifelong Marxist, and is a loyal defender of China.

Tam’s public record is deplorable. Indeed, she has been wrong at every turn. “Right now,” she said at a critical juncture, “the risk is low in Canada.” She assured us that travel bans were not necessary since they were not recommended by the WHO. Recently, Conservative Member of Parliament Derek Sloan, one of the four contenders for the party leadership vacated by Andrew Scheer, circulated an email highly critical of Tam recommending that she either resign or be fired.

https://amgreatness.com/2020/04/27/irans-space-threat-is-the-problem/

One can expect Iran to launch many more satellites into orbit over the next year or so to complete the constellation it is developing. At that point, both North Korea and Iran would have the capability to threaten the technological American military with certain defeat.

The Trump Administration has issued an edict to the U.S. Navy: sink any Iranian vessel that harasses U.S. warships operating near Iran. The last two American presidents had to deal with Iranian brinkmanship at sea. Yet, never before has the White House given such an explicit order.

What changed?

First, the coronavirus pandemic not only has crippled the United States, it also has eviscerated the leadership of Iran, which already was grappling with an economic decline caused by the sanctions imposed by the Trump Administration for its wanton pursuit of nuclear weapons.

Second, as the global price of oil collapses, Iran’s economy is suffering even more than it already was (oil is a key commodity for Iran). This creates a negative feedback loop, making Iranian aggression more likely in the region.

Third, Iranian aggression against American forces in the region not only is on the rise, but Iran passed a major milestone recently: the country has placed its first indigenously produced satellite into orbit. Many believe that the satellite launch was merely cover for the testing of an Iranian ballistic missile capable of delivering a nuclear payload over any target in the world.

This is certainly a possibility.

But there’s something more to this launch that has American strategists concerned beyond the expected concern over Iran progressing in the critical domain of reliable ballistic missile capabilities.

More Than a Nuclear Threat

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15943/coronavirus-china-intimidation

Chinese envoys have been especially aggressive on Twitter, which they are using to attack, intimidate and silence Western journalists, lawmakers and think tank scholars — essentially anyone who contradicts China’s official version of events.

Under pressure from Chinese officials, Esther Osorio, a communications adviser to Josep Borrell, the head of the EU diplomatic service, personally intervened to delay the release of the initial report. The EU was reportedly hoping to get better treatment for European companies in China. On April 25, however, the South China Morning Post, which also obtained a copy of the original report, revealed that Beijing had threatened to withhold medical supplies from Europe if the section on China was not removed.

On April 15, Germany’s most popular newspaper, Bild, published an article titled, “What China Owes Us So Far,” which suggested that China should pay Germany €150 billion ($162 billion) in reparations for the coronavirus pandemic. The article included an itemized list of economic damage, including €50 billion for losses to small businesses and €24 billion for lost tourism.

“You rule by surveillance. You wouldn’t be president without surveillance. You monitor everything, every citizen, but you refuse to monitor the diseased wet markets in your country.” — Julian Reichelt, editor-in-chief of Bild, “You Are Endangering the Entire World,” addressed directly to President Xi Jinping.

The European Union has caved in to pressure from China and has watered down a report on Chinese efforts to deflect blame for the coronavirus pandemic. Officials in Beijing reportedly threatened to block the export of medical supplies to Europe if the report was published in its original form.

The revelations come as Chinese diplomats around the world are waging an aggressive disinformation campaign — described as a “Wolf Warrior” style of diplomacy, named after a Chinese nationalist action film series — aimed at controlling the narrative about the origins of the coronavirus.

Chinese envoys have been especially aggressive on Twitter, which they are using to attack, intimidate and silence Western journalists, lawmakers and think tank scholars — essentially anyone who contradicts China’s official version of events.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15938/iran-coronavirus-anti-americanism

Iran’s covert disinformation operations concerning COVID-19 are not only aimed at inciting hatred toward the US; they are also, it seems, aimed at negatively impacting the international community’s efforts to fight the virus.

Whenever social media accounts or websites linked to the Iranian regime’s disinformation campaigns are exposed and removed, the Islamic Republic seems to find other outlets or else creates new accounts to continue spreading its propaganda.

Even amid the coronavirus outbreak and public health crisis, the Iranian regime seems to still prioritize its revolutionary ideals and its anti-American agenda. Unfortunately, the United Nations and the EU remain silent on the Iranian regime’s efforts to spread disinformation as well as on its other malign behavior.

While the US has offered medical assistance to Iran, the regime in Tehran appears to be exploiting the coronavirus pandemic to spread disinformation. It includes pro-China and anti-US narratives, most likely to ratchet up anti-Americanism.

Recently, the social media analyst Graphika revealed that a pro-Iranian influencing operation, known as the International Union of Virtual Media (IUVM), had begun a social media disinformation campaign about the coronavirus outbreak around end of February.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/taiwans-coronavirus-example-11588026299?mod=opinion_lead_pos4

Since 1971 China has prevented Taiwan, which Beijing insists is a rogue province, from fully participating in the World Health Organization (WHO). Now the Covid-19 pandemic has put in sharp relief the deadly consequences of placing East Asia’s regional politics before global health.

As the Trump Administration reviews the WHO’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak, it also should work with Congress to make better treatment of Taipei a condition for continued financial support.

***

Taiwan has been a model for handling the outbreak. Its transparent and competent approach has left the island nation of 24 million with 429 confirmed cases and only six deaths. On Monday the country announced zero new cases, and officials believe the local epidemic could be over by June. China’s penchant for secrecy and political control, on the other hand, helped to make the local outbreak a global pandemic. Yet WHO has treated the two as if the opposite were true.

The coronavirus emerged in China late last year, with the first confirmed cases reported in December. On New Year’s Eve, public health officials in Wuhan, China, told WHO about a pneumonia virus but doubted it could spread easily. On the same day, Taiwanese officials say they asked the agency for more information about the virus and the risk of human-to-human transmission. WHO officials reportedly confirmed receipt of the note but didn’t respond.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-century-of-bioweapons-11588025901?mod=hp_opin_pos_2

Covid-19 does not appear to be a genetically engineered plague unleashed on the world by supervillains—but its massive global impact shows how effective such a weapon could be. That will have consequences.

The current pandemic, we may hope, won’t live up to its full hype. It may be less destructive and even less costly than many feared. Reliable treatments may soon become available, and societies will figure out ways to protect the most vulnerable while allowing the normal business of life to resume. Covid-19 will presumably at some point become through antiviral therapies a manageable hazard, like HIV/AIDS before it, or be conquered by a vaccine.

Yet less than three months after the first known Covid-19 death in the U.S., more Americans have died of this disease than fell in battle during the Vietnam War. It has disrupted more lives, thrown more people out of work, and at least temporarily closed more businesses than the Great Depression.

And of course the U.S. is not alone. Much of the world has been shut down; global trade has been upended in ways not seen since World War II, and the spreading economic and geopolitical fallout from the pandemic is already on course to dwarf the consequences of the 2008-09 financial crisis.