RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2019/11/slavery-persists-saudi-arabia-hugh-fitzgerald/

As is well known, slavery was formally abolished in Saudi Arabia as late as 1962, and then only after terrific pressure had been applied to the Saudis by Western governments. And today, when we speak of slavery in the Muslim world, we think of Mauritania (with 600,000 slaves), as the report in the past hour discussed, Niger (600,000 slaves), Mali (200,000 slaves), and Libya (where slave markets have opened in nine sites during the last two years). Most of us assume that in Saudi Arabia, slavery is no longer tolerated.

But most of us are wrong.

Slavery may have been formally abolished, but the cruel and savage treatment of foreign domestic workers, their inability to free themselves from arduous work conditions because their employers keep their passports and other documents, amount to slavery in all but name.

A report on one group of domestic slaves — Vietnamese women — by reporter Yen Duong, who interviewed former workers who had made it back to Vietnam, was published last year in Al Jazeera here:

Overworked, abused, hungry: Vietnamese domestic workers in Saudi Arabia.

Women say they are forced to work at least 18 hours a day, denied food, assaulted and refused the right to return home.

Pham Thi Dao, 46, says she worked more than 18 hours a day and was given the same one meal to live on – a slice of lamb and plain rice.

Dao, 46, was a domestic worker in Saudi Arabia for more than seven months until she returned to Vietnam in April.

“I worked from 5am until 1am in the morning, and was allowed to eat once at 1pm,” Dao told Al Jazeera of her experience in the port city of Yanbu. “It was the same every day – a slice of lamb and a plate of plain rice. After nearly two months, I was like a mad person.”

According to statistics from Vietnam’s labor ministry, there are currently 20,000 Vietnamese workers in the kingdom, with nearly 7,000 working as domestic staff for Saudi families…

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15139/european-court-free-speech

“This judgment has major implications for online freedom of expression around the world…. The ruling also means that a court in one EU member state will be able to order the removal of social media posts in other countries, even if they are not considered unlawful there. This would set a dangerous precedent where the courts of one country can control what internet users in another country can see. This could be open to abuse, particularly by regimes with weak human rights records.” — Thomas Hughes, executive director of ARTICLE 19, a non-profit organization that works on “protecting the right to freedom of expression around the world,” October 3, 2019.

The judgment from the Court of Justice of the European Union… appears to give EU member states unprecedented power to determine public discourse online — to determine what citizens can and cannot read…. [T]he prospects now look even bleaker for the future of free speech in Europe.

On October 3, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled in a judgment that Facebook can be ordered by national courts of EU member states to remove defamatory material worldwide:

“EU law does not preclude a host provider such as Facebook from being ordered to remove identical and, in certain circumstances, equivalent comments previously declared to be illegal. In addition, EU law does not preclude such an injunction from producing effects worldwide, within the framework of the relevant international law which it is for Member States to take into account.”

The ruling came after the Austrian politician Eva Glawischnig-Piesczek, chairman of Die Grünen (The Greens) party, sued Facebook Ireland in the Austrian courts. According to the Court of Justice of the European Union:

“She [Glawischnig-Piesczek] is seeking an order that Facebook Ireland remove a comment published by a user on that social network harmful to her reputation, and allegations which were identical and/or of an equivalent content.

“The Facebook user in question had shared on that user’s personal page an article from the Austrian online news magazine oe24.at entitled ‘Greens: Minimum income for refugees should stay’. That had the effect of generating on that page a ‘thumbnail’ of the original site, containing the title and a brief summary of the article, and a photograph of Ms Glawischnig-Piesczek. That user also published, in connection with that article, a comment which the Austrian courts found to be harmful to the reputation of Ms Glawischnig-Piesczek, and which insulted and defamed her. This post could be accessed by any Facebook user.”

The judgment has brought concern among free speech organizations. Thomas Hughes, the executive director of ARTICLE 19, a non-profit organization that works on “protecting the right to freedom of expression around the world,” said:

“This judgment has major implications for online freedom of expression around the world.

https://thefederalist.com/2019/11/07/pompeo-united-states-fostered-chinas-rise-at-th

What was revelatory in Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s remarks was his forthright recognition of the nature of the Chinese Communist Party and its ambitions.

While Washington is consumed with the political theater of impeachment, Trump administration officials have begun a vital effort to engage the American people—and the world—on the defining substantive issue of our time in national security and foreign policy: The imperative to counter the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

At last week’s annual Hudson Institute Herman Kahn Award Gala, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the guest of honor, delivered a poignant and powerful address on the unfolding strategic competition between the United States and China.

In Pompeo’s speech, dubbed “The China Challenge,” he surveyed the history of American willful blindness and consequent folly toward the totalitarian regime, acknowledging that “we accommodated and encouraged China’s rise for decades…even when that rise was at the expense of American values, Western democracy, and security, and good common sense.”

He illustrated the dichotomy whereby the CCP has created a “permanent class of China lobbyists in the United States” that has manipulated U.S. leaders while exerting complete control over the flow of information into its mainland. Therefore, while the CCP’s narrative has flourished here, our counter-narrative has never entered there.

He detailed the harmful consequences for America and the world, in the way of China’s: rampant intellectual property theft; demands that those who transact with it toe the Communist Party line; asymmetric weapons development; threats to international order and commerce on the seas where trillions of dollars in goods flow; “debt trap diplomacy”—or a “loan-to-own” plan to buy power and influence around the world—memorialized by the “Belt and Road Initiative”; coercive acts eroding any semblance of “One Country, Two Systems” in Hong Kong; and persecution of the Uighur minority in Xinjiang.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15138/china-cripple-huawei

China, with control of 5G, will be in a position to remotely manipulate the world’s devices. In peacetime, Beijing could have the ability to drive cars off cliffs, unlock front doors, and turn off pacemakers. In war, Beijing could paralyze critical infrastructure.

There is no mystery to how Beijing thinks it will grab control…. The Chinese will use Huawei Technologies…. Huawei is a dagger aimed at the heart of America, and as the unnamed adviser… suggests, the threat is a mortal one.

There are various strategies for meeting China’s 5G challenge, but the most direct one is crippling Huawei. The Trump administration has taken steps to do so, but now that effort is on the verge of collapse.

The Commerce Department looks set to support that dangerous Chinese firm. US Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross is thinking too small. The United States, instead of trying to make sales, should be stopping everyone from selling to Huawei.

The Trump administration should be forcing others — Japan, South Korea, Taiwan — to make a choice: sell to Huawei or sell to the world’s largest market, America’s…. If they should not be buying Huawei, then Americans should not be supplying that Chinese company either.

Let us put Huawei out of business, not support its efforts to harm us.

“A prominent Republican who advises President Donald Trump called America’s 5G strategy ‘the biggest strategic disaster in U.S. history,'” wrote China-watcher David Goldman recently.

Many people will regard that as an exaggeration, but America’s failure to have a 5G strategy will almost certainly prove to have historic consequences.

“5G” is shorthand for the fifth generation of wireless communication.

“In the very near future, dominating the wireless world will be tantamount to dominating the world,” wrote Newt Gingrich in Newsweek in February. That is not an exaggeration.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15140/middle-east-anti-iran

The nationwide protests taking place in both Arab states [Lebanon and Iraq] are also driven by a burning desire to end Iran’s blatant attempts to turn them into de facto fiefdoms of Tehran.

The protests, moreover, could not have come at a worse time for Iran, where the economy is in freefall as a result of the wide-ranging sanctions that have been introduced by Washington.

Local protesters are now making plain that their dislike for Iranian meddling in their affairs could soon spell the end for Tehran’s ambition to become the region’s dominant power.

Iran’s attempts to expand its malign influence throughout the Middle East have suffered a severe setback as a result of the unprecedented anti-government protests that have erupted in Lebanon and Iraq in recent weeks.

The most obvious source of discontent in these two key Arab states has been the endemic corruption that has taken hold in both Beirut and Baghdad; in both countries, it has been the prime motivation in persuading tens of thousands of demonstrators to take to the streets.

The desire to end corrupt practices and force the governments in Beirut and Baghdad to undertake a radical overhaul of their respective countries’ governments is, though, only part of the story.

The nationwide protests taking place in both Arab states are also driven by a burning desire to end Iran’s blatant attempts to turn them into de facto fiefdoms of Tehran.

Iran’s attempts to seize control of the political agenda in Lebanon dates back to the early 1980s, when Iran established its Hezbollah militia in the southern part of the country to launch a series of terrorist attacks against Israeli forces operating in the area. Since then, Hezbollah — with Iran’s backing — has gradually extended its influence in the country to the point where Hezbollah is now widely recognised as Lebanon’s most influential political organisation.

Iranian interference in Iraq’s affairs, by contrast, is of more recent provenance, and can be traced back to the sectarian violence that erupted throughout the country following the overthrow of the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003. More recently, Iran has been able to expand its influence in Baghdad by taking advantage of the recent campaign to defeat ISIS, where Iranian-backed Shia militias — the so-called Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) — fought against the predominantly Sunni militants who supported ISIS.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/iran-briefly-detained-seized-travel-documents-of-un-nuclear-inspector-report/

Iran last week briefly detained and seized the passport of an inspector for the United Nations nuclear watchdog, a significant demonstration of non-compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal.

The female inspector was detained at the Natanz nuclear facility and her travel documents confiscated by Iranian officials, Reuters reported. Iran has confirmed it held up an inspector, blocking her from accessing the Natanz site over concerns that she was carrying “suspicious material.”

International Atomic Energy Agency officials familiar with the situation described Iran’s actions as harassment. More than 130 inspectors are commissioned by the IAEA to inspect Iran’s nuclear facilities and ensure they comply with the terms of the nuclear deal. Under the agreement, Iran is required to provide inspectors with “regular access, including daily access as requested by the IAEA, to relevant buildings at Natanz.”

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/11/will-boris-johnson-strike-a-deal-with-nigel-farage/

If he doesn’t, the Tories could be in trouble in the general election.

So how do things stand in the United Kingdom now that the Remain Parliament has finally been consigned to the dustbin of history and an election called for December 12? Well, there is the usual airy talk on both sides of the political divide about how the forthcoming U.K. election can’t simply be about Brexit but must instead cover a wide range of political questions. In a purely formal sense, that’s true: The parties will publish manifestos with policies on everything from the National Health Service to global warming.

But the wider truth is that this election will be almost entirely about Brexit because the nation’s sovereignty, for which Brexit is a code word, is what enables Parliament to determine legislation and government policy across the board. Those who oppose Brexit (i.e., U.K. sovereignty) do so either because they think that the EU would pursue particular policies more to their taste or because they have already transferred their allegiance to Brussels, now identify their interests with the EU’s more or less fully, and are therefore happy that it should decide everything.

That’s big stuff, bigger than most of the issues over which the parties traditionally divide, and as a result the parties have started to divide more over Brexit than over other domestic issues. In fact on those other issues all three (or at least two-and-a-half) U.K. national parties increasingly sound like different wings of a single Social Revolutionary party devoted to diversity, massive spending, and larger and more caring government, while differing only on how (or whether) to pay for it. Boris Johnson, for instance, just announced his government will ban “fracking,” which puts him aboard the Green Express alongside all other parties in rejecting the second coming of North Sea Oil — of which, until now, most Tories have been enthusiastic advocates. Johnson also distributes other people’s money with all the panache of a drunken leader of the Labour party.