Displaying posts categorized under

WORLD NEWS

The Green Tide Turns in Europe Rebecca Weisser

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2024/07/the-green-tide-turns-in-europe/

This month I’ve been editing Quadrant from the offices of the Danube Institute. Located in Aranybastya—the Golden Bastion—it affords a bird’s eye view not just of the picturesque spires of Budapest but of the fault lines dividing Europe. While the picture is mixed, the good news is that the great Green tidal wave that swept over the EU in 2019 has passed its high point and is receding. Green parties and their liberal technocratic and social democratic fellow travellers were the biggest losers in the EU parliamentary elections held from 6 to 9 June. 

The problem for Europeans is that the EU has a Potemkin parliament constructed to create the illusion of democratic control when in reality it is run by faceless Eurocrats inexorably claiming ever more power from member governments. The ability to draft legislation is the exclusive prerogative of the EU Commission, which styles itself as the “executive” arm but is appointed by the European Council which is made up of the leaders of the EU states. The parliament is relegated to approving, rejecting, or proposing amendments. So, until the right-wing insurgents become leaders of countries there is not much hope of seeing change in the EU.

Nonetheless, even though the turnout is only just over 50 per cent overall, the European parliamentary elections do serve as a useful barometer of public opinion. What they show is not just a rise in parties on the Right and a fall in the parties of the liberal technocrats (like Macron in France) and leftists generally but a collapse in the vote for the Greens.

In Germany, Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats won less than 14 per cent of the vote, their worst result in a national poll since 1949, and even fewer votes than the much-maligned Alternative for Germany which increased its vote by almost 5 per cent compared with the last election.

The German Greens were even bigger losers, falling almost nine percentage points to less than 12 per cent. Ironically, having campaigned to lower the voting age to sixteen, their vote crashed to only 10 per cent among those aged sixteen to twenty-four, with 17 per cent of this age group voting for the Christian Democrat Union and another 17 per cent voting for Alternative for Germany. 

In the next most populous country, France, the Ecologists only got a tad over 5 per cent, a steep fall from over 13 per cent in 2019 and more than 16 per cent in 2009.

‘We Don’t Want Churches, We Want Mosques’: The Persecution of Christians, May 2024 by Raymond Ibrahim

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20737/we-dont-want-churches-we-want-mosques

A raging Muslim mob attacked and savagely beat a 74-year-old Christian man, on what turned out to be a false accusation of “blasphemy”. Nine days later, on June 3, Nazir Masih Gill died from his many injuries, including a smashed skull. — Morning Star News, June 3, 2024, Pakistan.

The Muslim employer of Saima Bibi, a 24-year-old Christian woman, dragged her outside and shoved her toward an electric chaff cutter—which sliced off one of her ears, cut off most of her scalp, and injured an eye. Her husband, Shahzad, who worked on the same farm and was present, said that one of their employers, Muhammad Mustafa, was angry that they were taking a break and ordered them to cut fodder for the cattle. — Morning Star News, May 15, 2024, Pakistan.

Shahid Masih, a 35-year-old Christian dairy worker, was falsely accused of theft and subjected to “merciless torture” at the hands of Muhammad Ijaz. It included forcing him to ingest acid, from which he died in the hospital 11 days later…. Last reported, authorities are refusing to prosecute Muhammad Ijaz and his murderous accomplices. — britishasianchristians.org, May 15, 2024, Pakistan.

“Christian sanitation workers work long shifts even in extreme weather conditions…. these workers are often ridiculed and mistreated because of their Christian faith…. They often face salary delays and no job security. They are discriminated against even by their Muslim colleagues, and now we are witnessing incidents of physical violence against these weak people.” — Sunil Gulzar, Christian socio-political activist, Morning Star News, May 29, 2024, Pakistan.

Many other attacks on churches in France persisted throughout the month of May, including arson attacks, general desecrations, desecrations of cemeteries, defecations in churches and urination in their baptismal fonts, and bomb threats. — France.

“Imagine the uproar if it was Christians throwing rocks at a mosque? MPs and the media would be all over it screaming ‘Islamophobia!'” — Tommy Robinson, British activist, x.com, May 1, 2024, England.

The Church of the Holy Trinity was vandalized with Islamic graffiti, which included “Allah Akbar,” “Remove this church from here,” “Only Muslims are here,” “We don’t want churches, we want mosques,” and “Islam is the only true religion!” — orthodoxtimes.com, May 15, 2024, Kosovo.

IRAN MOVES INTO SOMALIA : DANIEL GREENFIELD

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20730/iran-moves-into-somalia

After six months of Iran using its Houthi Jihadis to impose a blockade near Yemen while defying Biden to do anything about it, the Islamic global terror state is moving on to a Somali blockade.

Current reports suggest that the Houthis, an Iranian Shiite terror group, is negotiating to provide weapons to Yemen’s Al-Shabaab, a Sunni Jihadist group allied with Al Qaeda, to expand Iran’s control over shipping. While Al-Shabaab has operated using the conventional Al Qaeda playbook of rifles and IEDs, the Houthis can offer upgraded drones and missile technology.

And best of all, the Houthis can claim that the weapons were battle-tested on the US Navy.

When the Houthis began their naval blockade, the Biden administration had the opportunity to shut it down. Instead, a US Navy carrier group has been tied up for months with no results. The AP headlined its recent coverage as “US Navy faces its most intense combat since World War II against Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels”. But as Front Page Magazine already reported, the only reason the war keeps dragging on is that Biden has restricted the US Navy to responding to incoming attacks and only the occasional light bombing raids against the sources of the attacks.

The Houthis, whose motto, like that of their Iranian backers, includes, “Death to America”, have been able to claim that they held off the world’s greatest military for half a year, while imposing control over regional shipping and international trade. And now Iran is moving into Somalia.

One of the side-effects of Biden’s refusal to go on the offensive against the Houthis was that the Somali pirates, who had been lying low during the Trump administration, decided to make a comeback. With Western naval operations diverted to the Yemeni blockade, it has fallen to the Indian Navy to protect shipping against the Somali pirates. But if the Yemen-Somali deal goes through, Al-Shabaab may displace the pirate gangs and impose its own naval blockade.

And with hundreds of US troops deployed in Somalia, the Al Qaeda affiliate armed by Iran would also have the opportunity to directly attack Americans with their new firepower. Previous local reports had already described a flow of weapons from Yemen to Somalia and pirates deploying anti-aircraft weapons aboard a hijacked vessel. So the arrangement may already be here.

Australia is turning a blind eye to anti-Israel extremism Protesters are spraying anti-Semitic graffiti, vandalising property and intimidating politicians with impunity. Hugo Timms

https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/06/27/australia-is-turning-a-blind-eye-to-anti-israel-extremism/

In Australia, anti-Israel activists have targeted yet another MP’s office, this time in Melbourne. Like previous acts of ‘pro-Palestinian’ vandalism, last week’s featured sinister red spray paint, the vapid but now omnipresent ‘Zionism is fascism’ tag, smashed windows and attempted arson.

Something else distinguished this particular attack, however. The office belonged to the Jewish Labor MP Josh Burns. He has been one of the few members of his party to publicly support and visit Israel in the wake of the 7 October pogrom.

Disturbingly, the vandals – police said there were six – appear to have spray-painted horns on top of an image of Burns’s face, while rendering his eyes as bright red orbs. So many lines have been crossed since 7 October that it is almost impossible to say where the bounds of civility now sit. But depicting a Jewish MP as the devil seems an ominous new low.

Before the attack on Burns’s office, anti-Israel activists also targeted the constituency offices of several other Labor politicians, including MP Peter Khalil, government-services minister Bill Shorten, attorney general Mark Dreyfus and defence minister Richard Marles. There was also an attack on the office of Liberal James Paterson, among others.

Incredibly, the western Sydney constituency office of prime minister Anthony Albanese has been closed since January due to repeated attacks. It’s even been defaced by the inverted red triangle – a Hamas propaganda symbol originally used to mark Israeli soldiers and tanks for attack.

The police response to what has now amounted to tens of thousands of dollars of damage has bordered on indifference. No charges have been issued so far. During the Covid lockdowns, Victoria Police arrested a pregnant woman in her own home for creating an anti-lockdown Facebook group, and spent significant state resources prosecuting people for exercising and shopping. Yet they look the other way when Israelophobes threaten our elected representatives.

Stop the Ukrainian Meatgrinder? The only practicable way to avoid another near-one million dead and wounded would be a settlement, however unpopular. By Victor Davis Hanson

https://amgreatness.com/2024/06/27/stop-the-ukrainian-meatgrinder/

Nearly eleven months ago, in August 2023, the New York Times reported that U.S. officials had estimated that some 500,000 Russians and Ukrainians had been killed, wounded, or missing in the then 18-month Ukrainian War.

Both Russia and Ukraine underreport their losses. Hundreds of thousands of additional casualties have followed in the 28 months of fighting.

In the West, the mere mention of a negotiated settlement is considered a dangerous appeasement of Russia’s flagrant aggression. In Russia, anything short of victory would be seen as synonymous with the collapse of the Putin regime.

Yet as the war nears two and a half years this summer, some facts are no longer much in dispute.

Controversy still arises over the circumstances of the 2014 overthrow of Ukraine’s pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych.

Russia charges that the West engineered the “Revolution of Dignity”—an effort to westernize the former Soviet republic, to expand the borders of Europe right to the doorstep of Russia, and eventually to fully arm Ukraine as a member of NATO.

Westerners counter that most Ukrainians wished to be part of Europe and independent from Russian bullying—and they had a perfect right to ask to join either NATO or the EU or both despite anticipated escalating tensions.

After the heroic Ukrainian defeat of the 2022 Russian bid to take Kyiv, there have been few significant territorial gains by either side.

Like the seesaw bloodbath on the Western Front of World War I, neither side has developed the momentum to force the other to negotiate or grant concessions.

As nuclear Russian threats against Europe mount, NATO is seeking to regain deterrence capabilities by boosting defense budgets, incorporating robust frontline nations Sweden and Finland, and uniting over shared concerns about Russian aggression.

Arresting Tommy . . . Again This time, it’s Trudeau’s turn. by Bruce Bawer

https://www.frontpagemag.com/arresting-tommy-again/

In the last few years, my friend Douglas Murray has become internationally famous – as much so, anyway, as a serious writer of non-fiction can be. His splendid books The Strange Death of Europe (2017), The Madness of Crowds (2019), and The War on the West (2021) were deserved bestsellers. And since October 7, Murray – born in 1979, a graduate of Eton and of Magdalen College, Oxford – has been rightly hailed around the world for his heroic reportage from Israel during the current war on Hamas. When he hasn’t been in Israel, he’s been traveling all over much of the Western world, giving endless talks and interviews and participating in debates, in which he inevitably triumphs. His writings, his speeches, and his comments have been focused largely on Islam, a topic on which, unlike many other commentators, he admirably refuses to euphemize. Because he recognizes that the brutal Hamas attack on Israel, and the immigrant crisis currently facing Europe, are based in the founding tenets of Islam – period – he refuses to use such phony terms as “Islamism” or “radical Islam” or “Muslim extremism.” It has been heartening to see him applauded by huge audiences – and winning important awards – on both sides of the Atlantic.

Meanwhile the careers of two other Englishmen have been advancing as well. Nigel Farage is also a British hero. For twenty years, the sixty-year-old former businessman led the ultimately successful movement to separate the United Kingdom from the European Union. His principal argument for separation was that the U.K. needed to take back its right to control immigration into its territory. Yet he consistently avoided the reason why it was important to restrict the massive influx of foreigners into Britain. The problem wasn’t with the Hindus or Buddhists or black Caribbeans or sub-Saharan Africans who’d moved to the U.K. These groups did a terrific job of integrating into British society and tended to earn more money than most native Englishmen. No, the problem was Islam. Douglas Murray has no trouble saying so. Nigel Farage, while projecting an image of utter fearlessness, always dodged the issue. In recent times he seems to have begun to tiptoe into these dangerous waters, but he’s still a long way from spelling things out as clearly as Douglas Murray does.

He’s hardly alone. Pretty much the entire British political establishment refuses to breathe a critical word about Islam. And even though the main reason for Brexit was that Brits wanted to retake control of their borders, both main parties, Labour and the Tories, have done little to prevent the large-scale influx of immigrants, mostly illegal, mostly adult men, and mostly Muslim. The Westminster establishment’s attitude toward this issue is perfectly in line with the views of privileged North London – Britain’s equivalent of Northwest Washington, the Upper West Side of New York, and the tonier parts of San Francisco and L.A. – but it’s totally at odds with the wishes of the British (or at least the English) public at large. On July 4, Britain will hold a general election in which the now-reigning Tories, who rode to victory on big promises of tighter border security, are expected to go down to ignominious – and well-deserved – defeat. Labour is expected to do well, although it hasn’t exactly covered itself in glory either. Then there’s the third major party, the Liberal Democrats. But the wild card is Farage’s party, Reform UK, founded in 2018 as the Brexit Party, whose strident calls for immigration reform and tax cuts have gained it a significant following. How significant? We’ll see on July 4.

Douglas Murray. Nigel Farage. And then there’s a third name. Tommy Robinson.

A Conservative Election Victory Puts Canada’s Post-Trudeau Era in Sight By Matthew X. Wilson

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/a-conservative-election-victory-puts-canadas-post-trudeau-era-in-sight/

In news that is sending shockwaves through Canadian politics, the opposition Conservatives claimed victory overnight in a closely watched by-election for a safely Liberal parliamentary constituency in downtown Toronto. The once Liberal “fortress,” known as Toronto-St. Paul’s, is one of the most Liberal-leaning electoral districts in all of Canada — the Liberal Party has carried the seat in the last ten Canadian federal elections, and the Liberal candidate has won by margins of greater than 20 percent in the last three. From an American perspective, this outcome is roughly analogous to Republicans winning a special election for a safely Democratic congressional seat in New York City.

The jolting result, besides an enormous momentum boost for the Conservatives, is a full-throated repudiation of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, one of the most unpopular Canadian leaders in history, who is on track to lose the next Canadian election (which must be held no later than October 2025) by spectacular margins.

Canada’s Liberals find themselves in a similar place to Britain’s governing Conservative Party: technically still in government, but facing an extinction-level electoral wipeout when they finally go before voters. But unlike Britain, where the central question with just nine days until the country’s July 4 election is how badly the Conservatives will lose, the Trudeau-led Liberals have 15 months before voters’ verdict must be heard.

The Liberals have some hard decisions to make. The obvious last-ditch play to rescue their party’s fortunes ahead of the next election is to replace their leader, and that is no doubt a possibility that both Trudeau and his rank-and-file parliamentarians are currently weighing.

France: Towards a Year of Uncertainty? by Amir Taheri

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20724/france-election-uncertainty

The election [French President Emmanuel Macron] unnecessarily provoked could produce a hung parliament in which no party has a majority.

That could make France ungovernable for at least a year, as the president cannot dissolve the parliament within a year of a previous dissolution.

It is still too early to decide how French President Emmanuel Macron might be remembered by history. But one distinction he is unlikely to win is that of “master of timing.” Yet his entourage claims that his decision to call an early general election was a master stroke in good timing.

This is how the argument goes:

With the ultra-right National Rally topping the polls in the European Parliament election earlier this month, Macron saw the danger that it would also win the next presidential election in 2027. So he decided to bring the parliamentary election forward so that the ultra-right’s youthful standard-bearer Jordan Bardella would get the premiership and more than two years in which to be exposed as a disagreeable and incompetent figure, thus allowing Macronists to keep the presidency with a new candidate of their own.

But what if things don’t happen the way Macron the super-strategist fantasized?

In the European election, Bardella’s list won what many see as a “stunning victory” with over 31 percent of the votes and 30 of the 81 French seats in the European Parliament.

Macron’s coalition received only 14.6 percent of the vote, translated into 13 seats. A normal reaction would have come in the form of “too bad, but so what?”

European Parliament elections have never been part of the mainstream of the French political process. These elections are held on a single-round proportional representation basis, which magnifies the rewards.

Held under a different electoral system, parliamentary elections in France do not mirror Euro-elections.

Here, a two-round voting system means 577 separate constituency elections affected by a variety of factors beyond a straight ideological duel.

To win a majority and thus get to name a prime minister, a party or coalition of parties must win at least 289 seats.

No party or coalition of parties has won that many seats in the first round of any parliamentary election in France.

That means you need coalition partners to secure a majority in the second round. Without that, the votes you get in the first round are simply wasted ballots.

Iran Mullahs Drastically Speed Up Their Nuclear Program, US Administration Sits Idly By by Majid Rafizadeh

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20722/iran-speed-nuclear-program

The United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) recently issued an unusually jarring warning, highlighting a development in Iran’s nuclear program. IAEA inspectors confirmed that, for the first time, Iran has commenced the process of feeding uranium gas into three cascades of advanced IR-4 and IR-6 centrifuges at its Natanz enrichment facility.

By waiving sanctions on Iran, the Biden administration has effectively provided financial support amounting up to an estimated $100 billion to the mullahs. Worse, the Biden administration has turned a blind eye to Tehran’s destabilizing and aggressive policies, both within the region and without.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has explicitly articulated his vision for Israel’s destruction in his 416-page book, Palestine. This manifesto serves as a detailed guide to eliminating Israel, often referred to in Iran as “The Little Satan,” and vehemently condemns the United States, referred to as “The Great Satan.”

By acquiring nuclear weapons, the regime could also equip its proxies — Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis — with these weapons to use against Israel. Using its proxies as its “human shields” allows Iran’s regime to maintain plausible deniability, so it can continue hiding behind them while escalating the real threat to Israel, which is Iran itself.

The Biden administration needs urgently to take decisive action to curb Iran’s aggressive nuclear advancements. The US needs to stop its current practice of waiving sanctions on Iran and start reimposing — and enforcing — severe sanctions on the country’s oil and gas industry. The US also needs to cut off the financial flow to the regime by imposing secondary sanctions: any country that does business with Iran may not do business with the United States.

US failure to act will only rapidly lead to a nuclear-armed Iran, significantly upending global stability and providing a potential vacuum for America’s adversaries to fill.

The United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) recently issued an unusually jarring warning, highlighting a development in Iran’s nuclear program. IAEA inspectors confirmed that, for the first time, Iran has commenced the process of feeding uranium gas into three cascades of advanced IR-4 and IR-6 centrifuges at its Natanz enrichment facility. These cascades, which consist of multiple centrifuges working in unison, increase the efficiency of uranium enrichment by spinning the uranium gas at extremely high speeds, allowing Iran to enrich it at a much faster rate and significantly reducing the time required to produce nuclear weapons.

Europe: Nazis’ ‘Do Not Buy from Jews’ 2.0 by Robert Williams

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20713/europe-nazis-boycott-israel

Since October 7, when Iranian proxies Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad committed unspeakable atrocities against men, women, children and babies in Israel, large parts of the international community have been in a frenzy over the Jews’ puzzling inclination to defend themselves.

This is the same French government [which banned Israel from participating in Eurosatory 2024 defense industry trade fair] so obsessed with appearing inclusive and non-discriminatory that it recently supported a bill that outlaws discrimination based on hair texture, length, color or style.

Meanwhile, the French government did not think it necessary to ban the participation of China, presently indulging in two genocides – against Tibetans and against Uyghurs – from participating in Eurosatory. China’s representation at the trade fair counts around 61 defense companies.

The French government also did not ban… Turkey, which has been taken to the International Criminal Court for committing crimes against humanity against hundreds of thousands of opponents of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruthless regime…

When there are no Jews to blame, evidently, crimes against humanity, genocide and human rights abuses are perfectly acceptable.

Since October 7, more than 19,000 rockets have been launched into Israel, a country smaller than New Jersey, primarily by the terrorist groups ruling Gaza, as well as from another of Iran’s terrorist proxies, Hezbollah in Lebanon

Never mind that John Spencer, Chair of Urban Warfare Studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point, determined that Israel has consistently implemented more measures to prevent civilian casualties than any military in the history of warfare.

“The Middle East does not need more weapons, it needs more peace,” said Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares. The remark, oddly, did not appear to be addressed the entities that started the war: Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran and Qatar.

Iran, the Middle East’s warmonger par excellence, and — along with major funding from Qatar, which seems never to have met an Islamic terrorist group it did not finance or promote — was the originator of the current war in Gaza.

Iran’s terrorist proxies span the region — Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza; Hezbollah in Lebanon; the Houthis in Yemen, and various proxy militias in Syria and Iraq — well-funded because of the Biden administration’s lifting sanctions. Yet Albares has nothing but praise for Iran.

The submission to the Islamic regime by European leaders such as Albares, who knows full well that Iran is behind the war in Gaza, tells us more about them than about Israel.

In April, however, the EU imposed sanctions on Israeli “settlers.” Regrettably, to many Palestinians, all of Israel is “one big settlement” that needs to be uprooted, and everyone there, a “settler.”