RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/04/covid-19-and-swedish-exception-bruce-bawer/

A few weeks ago, while other countries around the world were locking down in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the UK and Sweden chose to go with business as usual: keep everything running, act as if nothing’s wrong, let people hold parties and meetings and candlelight suppers. In response to a public outcry and a growing sense that the nation was barreling toward disaster, British officials soon backed off from this policy. But Sweden, on the advice of top government epidemiologist Anders Tegnell – described by Reuters as “only months ago a little known civil servant but now rivalling the prime minister for publicity” – stuck to its guns. Hence the denizens of IKEA-land are still going to work, kids are still going to school, and shops and bars and restaurants and gyms and barbershops are still open.

To be sure, this approach has its share of credentialed and outspoken domestic critics. Epidemiologist Joacim Rocklöv has called it “a big and risky experiment with the entire population that could have a catastrophic outcome.” Cecilia Söderberg-Nauclér, a virologist at the Karolinska Institute, used the same word: Sweden’s government, she charged, is “leading us to catastrophe.” Meanwhile, a mathematics professor at the University of Stockholm has warned that thanks to the official hands-off strategy, half of the country’s population could be infected with the virus by the end of April. And at last count, no fewer than 2300 academics, including the head of the Nobel Foundation, have signed a petition calling “for more stringent measures” against the virus.

In neighboring Denmark, which has pursued a lockdown along the line of America’s, the state of affairs in Sweden is causing no small degree of trepidation. “Looking at Sweden is a bit like watching a horror film,” a Danish TV reporter, Lisbeth Davidsen, said the other day. The reaction in next-door Norway has been similar. 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/world-health-coronavirus-disinformation-11586122093?cx_testId=3&cx_testVariant=cx_4&cx_artPos=1#cxrecs_s

The coronavirus pandemic will offer many lessons in what to do better to save more lives and do less economic harm the next time. But there’s already one way to ensure future pandemics are less deadly: Reform or defund the World Health Organization (WHO).

Last week Florida Senator Rick Scott called for a Congressional investigation into the United Nations agency’s “role in helping Communist China cover up information regarding the threat of the Coronavirus.” The rot at WHO goes beyond canoodling with Beijing, but that’s a good place to start.

The coronavirus outbreak began in Wuhan, China, sometime in the autumn, perhaps as early as November. It accelerated in December. Caixin Global reported that Chinese labs had sequenced the coronavirus genome by the end of December but were ordered by Chinese officials to destroy samples and not publish their findings. On Dec. 30 Dr. Li Wenliang warned Chinese doctors about the virus, and several days later local authorities accused him of lies that “severely disturbed the social order.”

Taiwanese officials warned WHO on Dec. 31 that they had seen evidence that the virus could be transmitted human-to-human. But the agency, bowing to Beijing, doesn’t have a normal relationship with Taiwan. On Jan. 14 WHO tweeted, “Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission.” The agency took another week to reverse that misinformation.

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2020/04/maladies-and-diseases/

There was a rare cheerfulness in much of the country over Christmas and the New Year. It would be hard to exaggerate the relief that many Britons felt after December’s unexpected election result. Thanks in large part to the people of the traditionally Labour-voting cities of the north of England, the country (and by extension the NATO alliance) had just been saved from a Corbyn government. The Tory prime minister Boris Johnson had won a large enough majority to avoid the political paralysis that had marked the previous six months. It seemed at least possible that, so equipped, this clever but transparently flawed chancer with a talent for winning the affection of ordinary people might achieve great things, or at least things that his more conventional predecessors and rivals had not.

In March, things felt rather different. There have been any number of reminders of the deep problems in British governance and society that recent governments have failed to grapple with. On February 2 for example, only two months after the London Bridge terrorist stabbing incident, yet another Islamist terrorism convict who had been released from prison “on licence”, attacked random citizens in the streets of Streatham. There could hardly have been a better illustration of the disastrous inadequacy of the country’s probation system, its under-staffed, overcrowded, poorly-run prisons, its laughable sentencing laws, its hopeless de-radicalisation programs and its failure to confront the ideological roots of Islamist terror.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/suspected-cartel-shootout-kills-19-in-northern-mexico_3298854.html

CIUDAD JUAREZ —A shootout between suspected drug cartel hitmen has killed 19 people in the northern Mexico state of Chihuahua, the state government said on Saturday, in one of the country’s worst outbreaks of gang violence this year.

“They’re two criminal groups fighting over drug trafficking routes to the United States,” Chihuahua’s attorney general Cesar Peniche told Reuters.

Security forces found 18 bodies on Friday evening at the site of the gunfight in the municipality of Madera, and a wounded man picked up at the scene later died of his injuries, the state attorney general’s office said in a statement.

They also secured 18 long firearms, two vehicles and two grenades, the statement said, adding that the search for armed men and the investigation of the site was continuing.

Local media reported that the gunmen belonged to groups linked to the Juarez Cartel and the rival Sinaloa Cartel, which Peniche said was correct.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/uk-prime-minister-boris-johnson-admitted-to-hospital-over-covid-19_3299338.html?utm_source=pushengage&utm_medium=pushnotification&utm_campaign=pushengage

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson was taken to the hospital for tests, coming just days after he was diagnosed with COVID-19, according to his office, which said the move is precautionary.

Johnson is one of nearly 48,000 UK residents to have contracted the potentially fatal Chinese Communist Party (CCP) virus, a novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

A Downing Street spokeswoman told UK news outlets: “On the advice of his doctor, the Prime Minister has tonight been admitted to hospital for tests.”

The spokeswoman added that Johnson, 55, has “continue[d] to have persistent symptoms of coronavirus 10 days after testing positive for the virus,” while stressing that his hospitalization was precautionary.

“The Prime Minister thanks [National Health Service] staff for all of their incredible hard work and urges the public to continue to follow the Government’s advice to stay at home, protect the NHS and save lives,” the statement read.

Johnson was diagnosed with the CCP virus on March 27 and was showing mild symptoms at the time, the government said. Johnson had informed his social media followers that he had mild symptoms before he tested positive.

https://pjmedia.com/trending/two-dead-five-wounded-in-terrorist-knife-attack-in-france/

A Sudanese national in the French town of  Romans-sur-Isere, just south of Lyon, went on a rampage Saturday on a busy street attacking 7 people, killing two and wounding five.

Police arrested him without incident when he was found kneeling on the ground “praying in the Arabic language.”

ABC News:

In a press release, the Counterterrorism Prosecutor’s office revealed that “handwritten documents with religious overtones in which the author of the lines complained in particular of living in a country of disbelievers” were found duringa search carried out at the suspect’s home.

The alleged perpetrator was taken into custody on charges of assassination and attempted assassination in connection with a terrorist enterprise and criminal terrorist association. An acquaintance of the suspect’s was also placed in police custody.

Police, deployed for the coronavirus pandemic, probably prevented a larger body count.

The Interior Minister saluted the mobilization of a hundred police officers during an ongoing nationwide lockdown to stem the spread of  COVID-19 which already claimed the lives of more than 6,000 in France.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15822/coronavirus-indonesia

Instead of advising congregations in general, and Indonesians in particular, about the pandemic nature of coronavirus, many religious leaders were linking the virus to something supernatural that could be fought with prayers.

Somad was quoted as saying that as the Muslims observe a lifestyle that is in harmony with religious teachings and is different from the majority of the population, they have protection from the deadly virus.

These various claims no longer stand. Soon, sadly, the coronavirus swiftly moved beyond the prayer of millions of devout believers. On March 3, the president of Indonesia, Joko Widodo, officially announced the first two cases of coronavirus infection…. The government, the president mentioned, should be making all efforts to manage the crisis. What will Indonesian Islamist clerics, such as Somad and his supporters at MUI do: pray or find ways to take the president down?

Coronavirus, now a global pandemic, received a different response in Indonesia than in most of the world. In February, when China was quarantining Hubei province, prominent Indonesian clerics were reducing the disease to a religious matter. As usual, the assertion was marked by religious claim of superiority and that God could easily be involved in daily life.

Instead of advising congregations in particular and Indonesians in general about the pandemic nature of coronavirus, many religious leaders were linking the virus to something supernatural that could be fought with prayers.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15841/who-eats-the-cake-in-tehran

The new message from Tehran is that Iran is in need of humanitarian aid to curb the coronavirus and prevent the death of large numbers of Iranians… The first sign that the message may be working came last Monday when Germany announced that it has arranged a $5 million cash line through the European Union for Iran to secure medical supplies needed to fight the pandemic. The German initiative, through a mechanism called Instex and designed to by-pass sanctions, is clearly meant to test the waters.

Nevertheless, the acceptance of the first Instex operation and the renewal of waivers might have two outcomes that may not please Washington…. The result could be a sham show of unity by the regime with a new message to Iranians, as German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas believes that change within the regime may be better than regime change.

The trouble with all this is that we have already been there, done that and bought the t-shirt. Europe and the United States have repeatedly tried to bring the Islamic Republic in from the cold by playing the accommodation, not to say appeasement, card, each time ending up as the cuckold in the story.

The tidbits offer an insight into the mindset of the weird clique dominating Iran since 1979 and why those who believe they are dealing with a normal government would need to have their heads examined. The Reagan administration, helped by Israel, smuggled over 1,000 anti-tanks missiles to Iran to help it stop the advance of the Iraqi invasion in the eight-year Iran-Iraq war. The mullahs paid half the cost of the missiles as down payment but refused to pay the second half after they had received all consignments. There was no need to pay “The Crusaders” the price.

https://pjmedia.com/trending/venezuelan-warship-shoots-at-german-cruise-ship-rams-it-and-sinks-itself/

Reports out of Berlin tell of a German Arctic cruise ship being fired on by a Venezuelan naval vessel, which then rammed the passenger liner, sinking itself in the process.

No, this is not a story that appeared in The Onion.

The Jerusalem Post says that the incident occurred on March 30 and took place in international waters.

The Iranian regime-allied Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro accused the captain of the RCGS  RESOLUTE cruise ship of “terrorism and piracy” and sought to force the ship into a new direction on the high seas. The cruise ship, which had no passengers on board and was sailing under a Portuguese flag, has a reinforced hull that enables it to sail through ice water.

An unarmed passenger ship accused of “terrorism and piracy”? Well, it is the Venezuelan navy.

Columbia Cruise Services continued, stating that “Shortly after mid-night, the cruise vessel was approached by an armed Venezuelan navy vessel, which via radio questioning the intentions of the RCGS  RESOLUTE’s presence and gave the order to follow to Puerto Moreno on Isla De Margarita. As the RCGS  RESOLUTE was sailing in international waters at that time, the Master wanted to reconfirm this particular request resulting into a serious deviation from the scheduled vessel’s route with the company DPA.”