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There Is No Private Sector in China: The US Needs Officially to Restrict Cooperation with China by Anna Mahjar Barducci

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21538/china-private-sector

A larger problem, apart from tariffs, is that China does not have a private sector.

The Chinese Communist Party is the founding and only ruling party of the People’s Republic of China. Hence, all Chinese companies directly support the CCP’s priorities and ambitions to replace the United States as the world’s leading superpower. This plan obviously has little that might be good for the US, its national security, or its interests abroad.

China has openly been pursuing a policy of threatening to take over pro-Western neighbors such as Taiwan, the Philippines, South Korea, the Solomon Islands, India and Japan. In addition, Chinese warships have reportedly been invading Australian airspace and sailing alarmingly close to Australia. The CCP has also recently been trying to make it a “new normal” to have around Taiwan drills that at any time could turn into combat.

It has become increasingly clear that China’s plan to take over Taiwan and other neighbors is a question not of “if” but “when.” It is therefore crucial to understand that there is no private sector in China.

In the 14th Five Year Plan, the CCP identified the following industries as critical to China’s economic development: Artificial intelligence, semiconductors, robotic technology and biotechnology, to name a few.

Investing in China’s “private sector” underwrites China’s expansionist ambitions in Asia and enables it to continue claiming ownership of the South and East China Seas, as well as everything near it, to control world trade.

Investing in China’s “private sector” — effectively the same as its military — destroys the West’s interests, weakens its allies and fast-tracks the CCP in reaching its goals of seizing Taiwan and other neighbors, and possibly triggering a war with the United States. Investing in China’s “private sector” underwrites China’s expansionist ambitions in Asia and enables it to continue claiming ownership of the South and East China Seas, as well as everything near it, to control world trade.

US President Donald J. Trump’s current trade stand-off with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has already induced some Chinese companies, such as Shein, BYD, TikTok and Temu’s parent company PDD Holdings to move away from China and have induced some Western companies – including Apple, Dell, Hasbro, Microsoft, Hewlett Packard, Stanley Black and Decker, Foxconn, Nintendo, BYD Auto, TSMC, Intel, Mazda, Google and Samsung also to move away or diversify.

Is Europe Still Fighting Lost Energy Wars? by Drieu Godefridi

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21523/eu-greenpeace-dakota-access-pipeline

The signal is clear: in the United States, no one any longer jokes with those who hinder the economy and trample on the rights of others under the guise of idealism.

Greenpeace would apparently like organizations such as itself to directly or indirectly cause hundreds of millions of dollars worth of damage, while preventing any court from intervening.

The applicability of the EU anti-SLAPP directive to the judgment in question is doubtful…

It looks as if the EU, through this directive, once again is trying to dictate the law on American soil. Transatlantic tensions, already fuelled by trade disputes, issues of free speech, NATO funding and the war in Ukraine, would mount further.

In a spectacular decision, a court in North Dakota ordered the environmentalist organizations that comprise Greenpeace to pay $665 million in damages for “defamation, trespass, nuisance, civil conspiracy and other acts,” to Energy Transfer, the company behind the Dakota Access Pipeline.

The news came down like a thunderbolt. In a spectacular decision, the Morton County courthouse in Mandan, North Dakota, ordered the environmentalist organizations that comprise Greenpeace to pay $665 million in damages to Energy Transfer, the company behind the Dakota Access Pipeline. The figure appears a monumental slap in the face to Greenpeace, which was sued by Energy Transfer for “defamation, trespass, nuisance, civil conspiracy and other acts,” following demonstrations against the pipeline project in 2016 and 2017.

The North Dakota jury did not pull any punches. Greenpeace was declared liable; its methods illegal and its actions harmful. Greenpeace has already announced that it will appeal.

Beyond the legal wrangling, this ruling raises the question: what if this case marks the start of a major transatlantic rift between an America defending its energy interests and a Europe mired in its green romanticism?

Is Syria’s al-Sharaa the Moderate He Claims to Be? An eyebrow-raising pick for Syria’s Mufti. Hugh Fitzgerald

https://www.frontpagemag.com/another-sign-that-syrias-al-sharaa-is-not-the-moderate-he-claims-to-be/

Now there is another worrisome sign that Ahmed al-Sharaa may not be the moderate he claims to be. For he has appointed a most immoderate Sunni cleric to be the Grand Mufti of Syria. More on this appointment can be found here: “Ahmed al-Sharaa’s Pick for Syria’s Mufti Shows He Is No Moderate,” by Kamal Chomani, Middle East Forum, April 3, 2025:

Self-appointed Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s recent appointment of Sheikh Osama Al-Rifa’i to be Syria’s Grand Mufti and al-Sharaa’s announcement of the transitional Syrian government signals the new regime will continue to disregard Syria’s ethnic and religious diversity. Al-Rifa’i previously was head of the Syrian Islamic Council in Istanbul, which largely carried water for Turkey.

Al-Rifa’i’s appointment especially concerns minorities given his 2018 anti-Kurdish fatwa that greenlighted the Turkish invasion of Kurdish territories, and the Turkish forces’ subsequent ethnic cleansing and cultural eradication.

Al-Rifa’i’s fatwa began with a condemnation of the Syrian Democratic Forces, the largely Kurdish militia that allied with the United States against the Islamic State, for working with Americans and said, “Fighting the Syrian Democratic Forces is jihad in the way of God.” In its seventh point, the fatwa legitimized cooperation with Turkey’s military operations. “We do not see a legitimate obstacle to cooperating with the Turkish government in fighting criminals,” it explained….

The “criminals” Turkey claims to be fighting in Syria are the Kurds in the Syrian Democratic Forces who are fighting only to keep their autonomy in northeast Syria, while the Turkish army is trying to suppress them. Osama al-Rifa’i is in the pocket of Erdogan, who was no doubt delighted when al-Sharaa appointed him to be the Grand Mufti of Syria.

Sudan’s ‘forgotten war’ exposes the inhumanity of Israelophobia Why are the influencers who said ‘black lives matter’ shamefully silent on the black lives lost in Sudan? Brendan O’Neill

https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/04/06/sudans-forgotten-war-exposes-the-inhumanity-of-israelophobia/

They’re actually calling it ‘the forgotten war’. Following the fall of Khartoum to the Sudanese army last week, the global commentariat has been wringing its hands over this ‘overlooked’ tragedy. They’re inviting us, finally, to ponder Sudan’s ‘forgotten crisis’, to reflect on what some refer to as the world’s worst humanitarian calamity. Our reporters found ‘fear, loss and hope in Sudan’s ruined capital’, said the BBC this week. To which the only reasonable reply is: what kept them? This war’s been raging for years and only now do you deign to cover it?

It is an act of incalculable gall for the media elites to call Sudan’s suffering ‘the forgotten war’. For this war wasn’t forgotten, it was erased – by them. It was ruthlessly relegated down the hierarchy of human suffering by a media class so drunk on its obsession and animus with Israel’s war in Gaza that it became blind to every other horror on Earth. It wasn’t forgetfulness that led the West’s cultural establishments to so pitilessly neglect the suffering of the Sudanese people – it was Israelophobia.

Sudan has been ravaged by war since 15 April 2023. Yes, we will shortly arrive at the second anniversary of this brutal conflict that has claimed tens of thousands of lives and yet which so few people in the West are aware of. The war pitted the army of Sudan against the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a powerful paramilitary force that has its origins in the Janjaweed militia that carried out unspeakable atrocities during the ‘Darfur crisis’ of 2003 to 2020. The Sudanese army and the RSF were allies once. They ruled Sudan on a joint military council following the populist ousting of Sudan’s dictatorial president, Omar al-Bashir, in 2019. But tensions between them grew and a merciless war for sole power exploded in 2023.

Banning Le Pen, playing with fire The French people must decide who leads them, not the courts. Tom Slater

https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/03/31/banning-le-pen-playing-with-fire/

An insurgent politician, spoiling to cause an upset and topple the establishment, removed from the ballot paper following corruption charges. No, I’m not talking about Erdogan’s Turkey, or some other faraway autocracy, but nominally democratic France, where a court has just upended the next presidential election.

Marine Le Pen – leader of the right-wing National Rally (RN), preparing for a fourth tilt at the French presidency in 2027 – has been banned from standing for election for five years. She’s been found guilty for her role in siphoning off millions of euros in European Parliament funds and using it to fund RN’s domestic political activities. She’s also been fined €100,000 and sentenced to four years in prison – though she would only serve half of that, under house arrest.

It might not come to that – Le Pen will immediately appeal her sentence, a process that could take years. But the five-year ban on her running for president, or any other form of elected office, will take effect immediately, making another bid for the Élysée in two years’ time incredibly unlikely, if not totally impossible.

On the embezzlement charges themselves, Le Pen may well be bang to rights – even if a little creative accounting has long been par for the course among the Brussels set. The judge said National Rally staff had signed ‘fictional contracts’, establishing that ‘all these people were in reality working for the party and not for the MEP to which they were theoretically attached’. Le Pen refused to acknowledge any wrongdoing throughout, leading to a harsher sentence.

Canada Embraces European Suicide By J.B. Shurk

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2025/03/canada_embraces_european_suicide.html\

Installed Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney will likely retain his office following the country’s snap election on April 28.  His Liberal Party is riding a wave of anti-Trump, anti-American mania ignited by the U.S. president’s imposition of tariffs and emasculation of boy-band-backup-singer Justin Trudeau.  Given that Carney is a globalist central banker who will use the “global warming” hoax to further diminish Canadians’ national sovereignty and private property rights, it is dreadfully ironic that the Liberal Party is benefiting from recent patriotic fervor up north.  

As a patriotic American who despises the federal government’s encroachment on the individual states’ sovereignties and Americans’ individual rights here at home, I can certainly appreciate Canadians’ love for country and regional pride.  I just think Mark Carney and the Liberal Party are incapable of providing true patriotic stewardship when they openly push for the abolition of national borders and the advancement of global government.

Such is politics.  Populations often get caught up in the emotions of the moment and make poor choices that echo discordantly for decades.  After 9/11, I wanted payback at any cost.  Had I been wise enough to realize that those costs would include the Patriot Act, the abrogation of the Fourth Amendment, airport pat-downs, Homeland Security censorship, twenty years of war, chaos in the Middle East, mass migration into the United States, trillions in debt, thousands of servicemembers killed or wounded in action, and two generations of veterans struggling with PTSD, perhaps I would have better appreciated the price of vengeance.  

Sometimes what we think we want isn’t what we want at all.  I have a feeling a fair number of Canadians will relearn that lesson once Carney is empowered to claim a globalist mandate that only weakens Canada more severely.

‘Don’t You Know This City Belongs to Muslims?’: The Persecution of Christians, February 2025 by Raymond Ibrahim

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21512/persecution-of-christians-february

Some accounts of the “pure genocide” experienced by Christians at the hands of Muslims. — Nigeria.

“We, all Muslims, residents of Paccerakkang, especially Neighbourhood 02 and 03 STRONGLY REJECT the Establishment of a Church and worship activities in our environment forever.” — Text printed on banners, majesty.co.id, February 11, 2025, Indonesia.

Coptic Christians, for some inexplicable reason, appear to have become the most careless and fire-prone people in the world: more Coptic churches than any other kind seem to keep on “catching fire.” — copticsolidarity.org, February 20, 2025, Egypt.

The following are among the abuses and murders inflicted on Christians by Muslims throughout the month of February 2025.

The Muslim Slaughter of Christians

Democratic Republic of Congo: The beheaded corpses of seventy Christians—men, women, and children—were found inside a church. Earlier, on Feb. 12, Muslim militants of the Allied Democratic Forces, which is affiliated to the Islamic State, rounded up and marched 70 Christians to a Protestant church in Kasanga. There, the Christians were “tied up and decapitated with knives.” According to a regional expert,

“This was not just an act of terror. It was a targeted massacre of Christians, and it will not stop here… The ADF is part of a growing extremist network that wants to wipe out Christianity in the region. If nothing is done, more attacks will follow.”

No Time Left: China and Russia Making Sure Iran Goes Nuclear Before End of Trump’s Ultimatum by Majid Rafizadeh

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21507/nuclear-iran-no-time-left

Now, with Trump’s ultimatum delivered on March 7 to Iran— giving the regime a two-month deadline either to give up its nuclear and missile programs or face severe consequences — Beijing and Moscow have simply been accelerating Tehran’s efforts to join the nuclear club and to possesses at least six nuclear bombs before Trump’s deadline expires.

A meeting between Iranian and Chinese officials in Beijing, followed by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei’s outright rejection of Trump’s warnings, could signal a dangerous development: Iran has likely received guarantees from China and Russia that they will protect the regime, support its nuclear program, and ensure that it acquires nuclear weapons before the possibly-too-generous deadline Trump has set, no matter the consequences.

Iran’s bold rejection of Trump’s threats may not be based on internal strength but on external guarantees. Beijing and Moscow have likely calculated that if Iran regime joins the nuclear club and possesses nuclear bombs before Trump’s deadline expires and he takes direct action, then the West will be forced to accept a nuclear-armed Iran, just as it has had to accept a nuclear North Korea.

With Trump’s ultimatum in place, these adversaries are racing against the clock to ensure that Iran becomes a nuclear-armed state. If the US and its allies fail to act immediately, the balance of power could shift permanently, and the West could lose the war before realizing it had even begun.

Talk surrounding Iran’s nuclear ambitions has long focused on the ruling ayatollahs and their determined pursuit of nuclear weapons. The West’s primary focus has been mainly on Iran’s domestic leadership: the Supreme Leader, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and Iran’s nuclear scientists. What remains overlooked is the significant role that China, North Korea and Russia have been playing to make sure that Iran achieves nuclear weapons breakout before US President Donald J. Trump’s “two-month ultimatum” runs out.

Carney’s Snap Election — And Trump Saw It Coming By Sonia Bailley

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2025/03/carney_s_snap_election_and_trump_saw_it_coming.html

Mark Carney’s snap election is a globalist power grab disguised as leadership, continuing Trudeau’s agenda with a more polished image. But Donald Trump saw this coming — and he may be the only one ready to stop it.

Mark Carney’s sudden rise to power isn’t a win for democracy — it’s a globalist takeover in a Canadian suit. Recentlyinstalled as Prime Minister of Canada without a single vote, Carney now leads both the country and the Liberal Party just months before a federal snap election that he called. This isn’t about Canadian politics — it’s about global control. 

But Canadians have seen this movie before. Carney is former prime minister Trudeau’s spiritual twin: polished, elitist, and devoted to the same globalist networks. The only difference? Carney doesn’t wear blackface — he wears a central banker’s smile. If you think you’re voting for a nationalist in Carney, think again. You’re voting for a globalist in a Canadian suit.

Trump saw it coming long before most Canadians did. His unapologetic stance against Trudeau wasn’t just bluster — it was a strategic masterstroke. When Trump floated the idea of annexing Canada, it wasn’t a real policy proposal. It was a provocation designed to rattle the status quo — and it worked. Trudeau’s image crumbled under the weight of his own hypocrisy, incompetence, and allegiance to foreign interests. Trump exposed him on the world stage without firing a shot.

Now, Trudeau is gone — but the machine that backed him is not. Mark Carney stepped into power not through a democratic vote, but by appointment: unelected, unaccountable, and even more dangerous than his predecessor. A longtime insider of the World Economic Forum (WEF), the Bank of Canada, the Bank of England, and the UN’s climate finance movement, Carney is not a nationalist. He is a globalist operative tasked with keeping the Liberal regime alive and Canada under elite control.

Nurses in Iran Face Poverty Dwindling numbers under barbaric tyranny. by Struan Stevenson

https://www.frontpagemag.com/nurses-in-iran-face-poverty/

Women in Iran have been treated as second-class citizens by the mullahs for almost five decades. Women’s dress codes are under constant scrutiny. They must wear the hijab, and ‘morality police’ are on relentless patrol to enforce the law. The death in custody of the young Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini in September 2022 for not wearing her hijab properly ignited a nationwide uprising and a brutal crackdown by the mullahs that led to more than 750 deaths and tens of thousands of arrests. Women, particularly young women like Mahsa Amini, are singled out for brutal attacks for the ‘crime’ of malveiling. Girls who were deemed to be improperly dressed in the street have suffered horrific acid attacks and stabbings, in assaults openly condoned by the mullahs. Teenage girls arrested for the offense of posting videos of themselves dancing or singing on social media have been publicly flogged. Young female students attending end-of-term parties have been fined and beaten. This is what gender equality looks like in Iran today. But courageous women have led the protests, chanting “Women, resistance, freedom.” They have been on the front line of demonstrations calling for overthrowing the theocratic regime.

Against this background of unrelenting misogyny and discrimination, the exploitation of Iranian nurses, a respected and hardworking sector of society, continues unabated. As the Iranian economy collapses under a tsunami of political incompetence, corruption, warmongering, and international sanctions, the rial has halved in value since Masoud Pezeshkian, the so-called ‘moderate’ president, took office in August last year.