RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2019/08/islams-

Now that a religious discrimination bill is being proposed, there is a considerable risk that the Prime Minister might be contemplating the enactment of legislation to ban so-called ‘hate speech’ on the basis of severe criticism of a religion. As reported by the media, Scott Morrison has been urged by Islamic groups to extent to religious grounds the existing sanctions against those who offend people on the basis of race, gender, age, or disability.[1]

For Australians who have been following the Prime Minister’s approach to freedom of speech, this certainly comes as a very disturbing development.[2] After all, they would know among other things that, in a in December 2017 interview with the then-Fairfax Media, Morrison expressed his unconditional support for further restrictions on religious grounds. The now-Prime Minister declared:

It all starts when you allow … mockery to be made of your faith or your religious festivals — it always starts innocently and it’s always said it is just a joke — just like most discrimination does. And I’m just gonna call that out …  I’ve just taken the decision more recently, I’m just not going to put up with that any more, I don’t think my colleagues are either. Where I think people are being offensive to religion in this country — whichever religion that might be … well, we will just call it out and we will demand the … respect that people should provide to all religions.[3]

The ongoing push for laws that protect religionists from feeling “offended” comes primarily from Islamic groups. Grand Mufti Dr Ibrahim Abu Mohamed has called on the Prime Minister to push for new laws to extend greater protection to Muslims against so-called “Islamophobia”.[4] He told SBS Arabic 24 that, as the country’s highest Islamic authority, he has personally asked the Prime Minister for laws that would make it illegal to strongly criticise Islam.[5]

This is confirmed by a leaked video of the Prime Minister meeting with Dr Mohamed and other Islamic leaders at Lakemba Mosque. The video shows him being warmly received by the Muslim leadership and urged by them to extend the notorious Section 18C to religious grounds. It shows the Grand Mufti sitting next to Morrison and directly instructing him to create a federal law against “discrimination” based on religion.[6]

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274473/real-feminist-kurdistans-president-nechirvan-kawyar-shahed-omer

As a citizen of Iraqi Kurdistan, I am greatly pleased that not too long ago, Nechirvan Barzani, a strong feminist and advocate for women’s rights, was sworn in as the Kurdistan Region of Iraq’s President. When he was Kurdistan’s Prime Minister, I had the honor of working in his media office and the office tasked with rescuing kidnapped Yezidis. There, I witnessed how Barzani is one of the greatest advocates for women’s rights in the Middle East region. I saw how he tirelessly worked to save abducted Yezidi women and girls. I witnessed how he passed legislation that is greatly beneficial for women’s rights.   

Under the leadership of Barzani, Kurdistan amended the Iraqi Personal Status Law, which was used as an excuse to justify honor killings. On top of that, the Kurdistan Region of Iraq ratified Article Eight on the Elimination of Domestic Violence, which outlaws all gender-based violence. As a result of these measures, honor killings in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq are considered intentional homicide and due to the changes in the law, the number of honor killings in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq has significantly decreased since the Kurds received autonomy.

In addition, the Kurdish authorities outlawed all forms of forced marriages and female circumcision, restricted polygamy and reformed the inheritance law in order to guarantee a fair share for females. Furthermore, Barzani also succeeded in having the parliament pass a law stressing that a man cannot marry a second wife without the first wife’s permission. The first wife has to come to the court and sign a document stating that she gives her husband permission to take on a second wife. 

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/07/31/israeli-wine-from-settlements-must-be-labelled-canada-court-rules/
TEL AVIV – In a move that has been blasted as illegal by critics, Canada’s Federal Court on Monday ruled that Israeli wines from West Bank settlements can no longer be labeled “Made in Israel.”

In her ruling, Judge Anne L. Mactavish determined that saying wines produced in the West Bank are Israeli made is “false, misleading and deceptive.”  The ruling is an ideological victory for the anti-Semitic, anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movemen.

The settlements “are not part of the State of Israel,” the ruling said, and added that “Canadian federal legislation requires that food products [including wines] that are sold in Canada bear truthful, non-deceptive and non-misleading country of origin labels.”

West Bank Jewish-made wines labeled as “made in Israel” do not fall “within the range of possible, acceptable outcomes which are defensible in respect of the facts and law,” the ruling said. “It is, rather, unreasonable.”

In 2015, the European Union also determined that goods produced in the settlements must not be labeled as made in Israel in a move that was denounced by Israeli officials as being comparable to the Nazi boycott of Jewish goods and shops in the 1930s.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/07/31/britain-cannot-shirk-fight-against-rogue-states/

Now that Boris Johnson has made wholesale changes to the ministerial team whose primary duty is the defence of the realm, it is vital that it results in a radical new approach in the way British foreign policy is conducted. Far too often under Theresa May’s premiership, the defining characteristics of Britain’s engagement with the outside world were prevarication and hesitancy.

About the only time Britain made a firm stand was in the aftermath of the Salisbury poisoning, when not even the risk-averse Mrs May could avoid putting in place robust measures to punish Russia for its involvement in the worst chemical weapons attack on European soil since World War Two.

That said, Mrs May’s dire threats to crack down on Russian activity in Britain have made little impact, to the extent that Russia’s intelligence agencies are now busily rebuilding the spy networks that were dismantled in the wake of the Salisbury attack.

So there is a pressing need for Mr Johnson’s new ministerial team to adopt a more assertive approach if Britain is to reclaim its rightful place at the heart of world affairs, as well as making sure we are better equipped to defend ourselves.

Mr Johnson made encouraging noises during the Conservative leadership contest that he took a serious interest in such issues. He wrote to Dr Julian Lewis, the chair of the Defence Select Committee, that “for too long we have asked the armed forces to do too much with too little resource”, and pledged “that we will exceed the minimum 2 per cent Nato spending target”. His decision to visit the Faslane nuclear base, home to the Trident nuclear deterrent, as one of his first acts as prime minister sent a clear signal of his personal support for the military.

Insights from Quadrant https://quadrant.org.au/

Predictably, but not less galling for being so, an upcoming gathering of conservatives in Sydney, the CPAC conference, has come under attack for — yes, you guessed it! — homophobia, Islamophobia, gynophobia and assorted etceteraphobias, which is the way the Left rolls whenever those with non-progressive perspectives attempt to air their views, even if only among themselves. It works like this: some diligent elf at GetUp! or a piece of human office equipment in a Labor/Greens backroom picks over the listed speakers, googles “name” + “critics”, and quickly finds what others have said by way of denunciation.

This information is then shopped to hack reporters along with the demand that the targeted individual be denied entry to the country. If all the pieces click, the event will be besieged by the feral and violent Left — as has happened to Geert Wilders, Milo Yiannopoulos, Jordan Peterson, Bettina Arndt, the Australian Christian Lobby and any number of others — eager to implement Saul Alinsky’s advice:

Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions.

With the CPAC conference now mere days away, you just knew a dose of Alinsky’s devious medicine was about to be injected into the body politic. Well today it happened, trumpeted with homepage coverage by the ABC, SBS, and Nine newspapers , we read that failed premier, failed federal byelection candidate and camera-ready Sussex Street sweetheart Kristina Keneally has demanded that CPAC speaker Raheem Kassam be denied a visa.

“We should not allow career bigots — a person who spreads hate speech about Muslims, about women, about gay and lesbian people — to enter our country with the express intent of undermining equality,” Senator Keneally said on Tuesday.

Q: What must one do to qualify as a “career bigot”? A: Utter that which is true but must never be said about those high in  the hierarchy of contemporary victimology. Islam, for instance, which Kaseem described to a BBC interviewer as “a fascistic and totalitarian ideology” — an observation which enjoys the distinction of being entirely true.

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2019/07/inside-north-korea-the-land-where-lies-are-king/

My tour guide, Mr Li, asks “Is Australia divided into a North and South as well?”. Resisting the urge to make a joke about the Northern Territory, I tell him that it is not. These were the type of naïve, yet always cordially couched questions about everyday Australian banalities that I fielded during my visit to North Korea, a nation of 23 million prisoners – physically and psychologically. But it is important to separate the regime from the perpetually violated – yet often still jovial, and always inquisitive – people who have the misfortune of living in the last truly rogue state.

Arid land, emaciated husks of livestock (their owners not dissimilar), and a myriad other abject miseries fly past the window of the 17:27 to Pyongyang. Local farmers stare wide-eyed, some wave at perhaps the first foreign person they have ever seen.

“Thirty minutes until arrival”.

The “city of flat soil”, the literal translation of Pyongyang, is by far the most gentrified in the nation, yet the bleak hopelessness which defines rural life doesn’t ebb when you arrive on urban ground; it is simply traded for an existence – perhaps even crueller – among total artificiality, a state of limbo in which one knows they are imprisoned while acquiescing with their captors, lest they be sent to one of the North’s notorious ‘aquariums’. Pyongyang is only for those who are, relatively speaking, in on the joke – those who know that the outside world at least exists; those who know that Kim Jong Il didn’t, in fact, hit eleven holes-in-one the first time he picked up a golf club. These are mostly political elites, families with a history of loyalty to the regime, and polyglot tour guides, Mr. Li included.

Outside residents are prevented from travelling anywhere near the capital by checkpoints littered along the inbound roads. From afar, Pyongyang almost passes as an average city, mutatis mutandis. Pastel-shaded apartment buildings occupy the outskirts of the city, dated — but not offensively so — glass structures cast shadows over downtown, and spotless public squares are plentiful.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14624/turkey-threatens-migrant-crisis

“We are facing the biggest wave of migration in history. If we open the floodgates, no European government will be able to survive for more than six months. We advise them not to try our patience.” — Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu.

“Turkey is fully committed to the objective of EU membership… The finalization of the Visa Liberalization Dialogue process which will allow our citizens to travel to the Schengen area without a visa, is our first priority.” — Statement released by the Turkish Foreign Ministry, May 9, 2019.

“This doesn’t mean that I have anything against the Turks…. But if we begin to explain it — that Turkey is in Europe — European school students will have to be told that the European border lies in Syria. Where’s common sense? … Can Turkey be regarded a European country culturally, historically, and economically speaking? If we say that, we want the European Union’s death.” — Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

If the EU approves the visa waiver, tens of millions of Turks will gain immediate and unimpeded access to Europe’s passport-free zone. Critics of visa liberalization fear that millions of Turkish nationals may end up migrating to Europe. The Austrian newsmagazine, Wochenblick, reported that 11 million Turks are living in poverty and “many of them are dreaming of moving to central Europe.”

Turkey has threatened to re-open the floodgates of mass migration to Europe unless Turkish nationals are granted visa-free travel to the European Union. The EU agreed to visa liberalization in a March 2016 EU-Turkey migrant deal in which Ankara pledged to stem the flow of migrants to Europe.

European officials insist that while Turkey has reduced the flow of migrants, it has not yet met all of the requirements for visa liberalization. Moreover, EU foreign ministers on July 15 decided to halt high-level talks with Ankara as part of sanctions over Turkish oil and gas drilling off the coast of Cyprus.

In an interview with Turkish television channel TGRT Haber on July 22, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Çavuşoğlu said that Turkey was backing out of the migrant deal because the EU had failed to honor its pledge to grant Turkish passport holders visa-free access to 26 European countries. “We have suspended the readmission agreement,” he said. “We will not wait at the EU’s door.”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14626/iran-maritime-violations

Tehran is clearly violating international law, specifically the internationally-agreed UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS)…. The theocratic establishment of Iran is a signatory to this UN convention but has long refrained from ratifying it.
Wherever silence prevails, rogue states thrive. In the instance of Iran, the silence of the international community has been earsplitting. Moreover, any destructive behavior left unchecked is being passively reinforced; if the international community continues its silence while their unruly pet violates UN resolutions and maritime laws, they can only expect such violations to become the norm.
The UN needs to hold the Iranian leaders accountable and take appropriate measures against Iran’s aggression in the Gulf. If the UN fails to do this, other nations would be stupid not to take the cue deliberately to disobey existing international laws — possibly leading to a major war.

In recent times, nothing has exemplified the double standards of the international community more than its laid-back response to the illicit activities and recklessness of Iran in international waterways during the last few months.

Bizarrely, the international community and its ever-so-willing apologists cronies in the mainstream media seem more interested in chasing shadows with their constant criticism of Israel, while slyly ignoring the main culprit, Iran, which continues to jeopardize safety, peace and security in the region and worldwide.

In May 2019, for instance, four tankers were attacked close to the port of Fujairah off the coast of the United Arab Emirates, in what was a violation of their territorial space. Within a month, on the June 13, two ships – the Japanese Kokuka Courageous and the Norwegian Front Altair — crossing the Gulf of Oman were sabotaged with explosives. One went up in flames; the other was left to be towed away.

A few weeks later, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) released a video showing commandos in black ski masks and military fatigues descending from a helicopter to seize a British oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz. The Iranians would on go to shoot down an American drone over International waters. All of these provocations have somehow seemed to be slipped under the radar by the UN and other powers that be.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/boy-8-dies-after-he-and-mother-pushed-on-train-tracks-in-germany-1.3970820

An eight-year-old boy has died after he and his mother were deliberately pushed on to train tracks at Frankfurt’s main railway station, German police have said.

The boy was hit by a high-speed ICE train and killed instantly. His mother was able to roll into a safe gap between two platforms and escaped injury.

The suspect was chased through the station by passengers who managed to tackle him to the ground. Police later confirmed a 40-year-old man of African origin had been arrested.

The incident happened at about 10am on Monday on platform seven of the station, which is one of Germany’s busiest. The boy’s mother was being treated for shock, according to a police spokeswoman.
“Passengers witnessed the disaster, and ran after the fleeing man. It was possible to arrest him while he was still in the station,” the spokeswoman said. She added that the man had intended to push a third person on to the track, “but she was able to defend herself”.

The suspect is believed to be from Eritrea, according to police. He was being held in police custody on Monday but his possible motive remained unclear. The alleged perpetrator and the victims are not believed to have known each other.

Six platforms remained closed for several hours.
The incident follows the death of a 34-year-old woman nine days ago, who was pushed in front of a regional train in Voerde in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia in what is also believed to have been an unprovoked attack.