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WORLD NEWS

Turkey: Religious Backlash? by Uzay Bulut

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14815/turkey-religious-backlash

It is notable, however, that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s efforts to create “devout generations” of Muslims, through the establishment of numerous state-funded Imam Hatip religious schools, may not be having the desired results.

“Since [last summer], seventeen students with headscarves who identify as atheists have come to my office and [told me that] the reason [for their atheism] is the actions of the people who say they represent religion.” — Dr. İhsan Fazlıoğlu, Istanbul Medeniyet University, T24, March 19, 2018.

“The religion that the [Turkish] government is trying to ‘impose’ on society is emotionally unsatisfying: it is loveless.” — Professor Murat Belge, Head of the Department of Comparative Literature, Bilgi University, Istanbul, to Gatestone.

“Mosques or churches in your neighborhoods are no longer your only sources of information… Of course, societal pressures and the situation of the country are also [important] elements, but they are only elements that get the questioning started. This situation makes many people ask, ‘Is this what my religion is about?’ or they say, ‘If this is religion, I am out.'” [Emphasis added] — Selin Özkohen, head of the Atheism Association, Euronews, March 19, 2019.

In a radio interview on July 23, Temel Karamollaoğlu — the head of Turkey’s Islamist opposition party, Felicity — accused Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) of driving young people, particularly those from religious families, away from Islam and towards deism, a belief in a non-interventionist creator, or a god of nature.

According to a 2018 survey conducted by Turkey’s leading polling company, KONDA, Karamollaoğlu appears to be correct, at least about the growing number of young Turks who no longer consider themselves “religious” Muslims.

UK: Tony Blair Think-Tank Proposes End to Free Speech by Judith Bergman

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14850/uk-tony-blair-free-speech

Disturbingly, the main concern of Blair’s think-tank appears to be the online verbal “hatred” displayed by citizens in response to terrorist attacks — not the actual physical expression of hatred shown in the mass murders of innocent people by terrorists. Terrorist attacks, it would appear, are now supposedly normal, unavoidable incidents that have become part and parcel of UK life.

Unlike proscribed groups that are banned for criminal actions such as violence or terrorism, the designation of “hate group” would mainly be prosecuting thought-crimes.

Democratic values, however, appear to be the think-tank’s least concern. The proposed law would make the British government the arbiter of accepted speech, especially political speech. Such an extraordinary and radically authoritarian move would render freedom of speech an illusion in the UK.

The Home Office would be able to accuse any group it found politically inconvenient of “spreading intolerance” or “aligning with extremist ideologies” — and designate it a “hate group”.

The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change has released a report, Designating Hate: New Policy Responses to Stop Hate Crime, which recommends radical initiatives to tackle “hate” groups, even if they have not committed any kind of violent activity.

The problem, as the think-tank defines it, is “the dangerous nature of hateful groups, including on the far right like Britain First and Generation Identity. But current laws are unable to stop groups that spread hate and division, but do not advocate violence”. The think-tank defines what it sees as one of the main problems with hate crime the following way:

“A steady growth in hate crime has been driven by surges around major events. Often this begins online. Around the 2017 terror attacks in the UK, hate incidents online increased by almost 1,000 per cent, from 4,000 to over 37,500 daily. In the 48-hour period after an event, hate begins to flow offline”.

Brexit and the Deficiencies of Parliament by Malcolm Lowe

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14849/brexit-parliament

What has characterized the last year of UK politics is that individual MPs in the various parties have begun to seek the same freedom of action as US Members of Congress. So far, however, they are both fearful of suffering the same fate as the 21 banned by Johnson and remain inexperienced in the exercise of such freedom.

Johnson now has two alternatives. One is to reinstate the 21. His defenders claim that this would encourage similar defections in the future. The other alternative is to stick to his unpopular decision and risk being dismissed himself by his party. Either way, the unwitting heritage of Johnson may include the end of the tyrannical powers of the UK PM.

The Bank of England in its latest report estimates that the consequences of no-deal on October 31 will be less dire than it thought a year ago, but dire they will be: GDP will shrink by 5.5%, inflation will rise from 2% to over 5%, unemployment will “surge to 7% rather than 7.5%, up from a current 45-year low of 3.8%.” In short, a very healthy economy will turn into a problematic economy. The most worrying problem, however, is that the Bank is engaged in guesswork about an event without precedent. If things turn out much better or much worse than estimated, nobody should be surprised that the Bank got it wrong.

It is remarkable that the UK Parliament has spent almost a year of debates about the Brexit deal agreed by Theresa May’s government and the European Union. Indeed, about one small detail of that deal. We shall briefly describe what that detail is before explaining that the inordinate resulting delay reflects deep and longstanding dysfunction in the whole parliamentary system of the UK.

The deal consisted of two documents, the Withdrawal Agreement (WA, 585 pages) and the Framework for the Future Relationship (FFR, 26 pages). Most of the WA consists of regulations obviously needed for winding up UK participation in EU institutions, settling mutual debts, safeguarding the interests of UK citizens resident in the EU and vice versa, and the like. Even Boris Johnson regards all that as basically good and necessary.

The bone of contention is rather the so-called “Backstop” or (properly) the “Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland.” This is a set of procedures designed to preserve the current “soft border” between the two parts of Ireland until the Protocol can be replaced via the negotiations that will turn the FFR from a shortlist of intentions into a permanent relationship between the UK and the EU. At 174 pages, it is nearly a third of the WA. Yet the real contention is just about Article 20 of the Protocol – a mere page and a half out of a total of over 600 pages.

Why Egypt Does Not Want to Help Gaza by Khaled Abu Toameh

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14859/egypt-gaza-help

Israel’s goodwill gestures, however, have so far failed to deter Hamas and other Palestinian groups from repeatedly violating the ceasefire understandings.

Israel is prepared to do whatever is required to help the Palestinians in return for a cessation of terrorist attacks against Israel. Meanwhile, the Egyptians themselves offer nothing but broken promises regarding the crisis in the Gaza Strip. Egyptian policy, it appears, is based on the assumption that the Gaza Strip is – and must remain – solely the problem of Israel.

Why do Egyptians have to travel all the way to Israel to discuss supplying the Gaza Strip with food, medicine and fuel (through Israel) when Egypt can easily do so through its shared border with the Gaza Strip? The world seems to have forgotten that the Gaza Strip has a shared border not only with Israel, but with Egypt as well.

Egypt’s shifting and sometimes contradictory policy toward the Gaza Strip seems to have one goal: to divert attention from Cairo’s responsibility for the ongoing plight of its Palestinian neighbors.

Here is what Egypt and the Arab states should be telling Israel: “Thank you for all that you have done so far to help the people of the Gaza Strip. However, these are our Arab brothers. Therefore, it seems fair that we step in and assume this burden.”

Egypt has resumed its mediation efforts to prevent an all-out military confrontation between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Earlier this week, senior officials from Egypt’s General Intelligence Service (Mukhabarat) who visited the Gaza Strip reportedly relayed to Hamas leaders a message from Israel: it promised to “ease restrictions” on the Palestinians in return for a cessation of anti-Israel terrorist attacks.

The 21: A Journey into the Land of Coptic Martyrs A close look at the plight of an ancient Christian community Raymond Ibrahim

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274903/21-journey-land-coptic-martyrs-raymond-ibrahim

A review of “The 21: A Journey into the Land of Coptic Martyrs” by Martin Mosebach.

To learn as much as possible of the 21 Coptic Christians martyred for refusing to recant their faith at the hands of the Islamic State (“ISIS”) on the shores of Libya in 2015, writer Martin Mosebach traveled to their Egyptian homeland, where he interviewed family members, local clergymen, and generally took in the culture and atmosphere of Coptic living.

The result is an account that alternates between tragedy and triumph—between senseless deaths and staunch perseverance, past and present.  Because martyrdom is such a normal aspect of Coptic experience, when Mosebach “later asked myself what I had actually learned about the martyrs during my weeks in El-Aour,” where most of them lived, “I was at a bit of a loss.”  Neither the Coptic Church (historically known as the “Church of Martyrs”), nor the relatives of the slain, understood the latter’s martyrdom as something out of the ordinary or in need of elaboration.  The martyred—menial workers who spent their lives earning and sending money back to their families in Egypt—did not even seem to matter much as individuals but rather representatives of the collective.

Mosebach still managed to gather enough firsthand information to offer a compelling theory on the series of events that led to their slaughter.  The narrative includes an extra pious ringleader who inspired his fellow captives to persevere against beatings and death threats, and an ISIS guard who reportedly converted to Christianity and fled after witnessing their staunch faith.

This Week in Brexit By Madeleine Kearns

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/09/brexit-status-boris-johnson-strategy/Any questions?

Last week in British politics, the government lost its majority; MPs voted to take control of the Brexit process; a bill passed that would force Prime Minister Boris Johnson to request a three-month Brexit extension from the EU if no deal is reached by October 19; Johnson attempted to call a snap election, but failed to get the required two-thirds support of the House of Commons; 21 Conservative MPs, including Winston Churchill’s grandson, were kicked out of the party for rebelling against Johnson’s Brexit strategy; Tory cabinet ministers, including Johnson’s own brother, resigned, having lost faith in the government; and the High Court upheld Johnson’s decision to prorogue Parliament, suspending it from tomorrow until October 14.

[Deep breath.]

This week in British politics, the anti-Brexit speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, has announced his intent to step down; the Brexit-delay bill has been granted “Royal Assent,” making it the law of the land; the prime minister has visited the Irish taoiseach in Dublin and the have two released a joint statement admitting to “significant gaps” in their visions for Brexit; and the Commons has rejected Johnson’s second request for a general election.

[Another deep breath.]

Soooooooo . . . any questions?

1) Why did Johnson purge the 21 dissenting Tory MPs?

Members of the government, which typically incorporates around half of the parliamentary party and its ministers, are in general expected to support the prime minister on key votes. If they feel they cannot do so, they normally resign. By expelling the rebels, Johnson was turning this implicit expectation of loyalty into an explicit demand, and then applying it to all members of the parliamentary party.

Bolton’s exit raises the odds of US-China trade deal The departure of the China hawk might clear the way for a trade-and-technology deal David Goldman

https://www.asiatimes.com/

President Trump needs a trade deal with China as quickly as possible to avert a sharp slowdown of the US economy, as recent polls have made clear. There won’t be any deal unless the US finds some way to walk back its efforts to keep China’s top telecommunication firm Huawei out of world markets. The summary dismissal today of National Security Adviser John Bolton increases the prospects of a deal, although the immediate motivation for Bolton’s departure most likely lies elsewhere.

China and the United States seemed on track for a trade deal in early December 2018 when XI Jinping and Donald Trump dined on the sidelines of a summit meeting in Buenos Aires – except that Canada arrested Huawei CFO Meng Wangzhou at the Vancouver Airport. Trump didn’t know about the arrest, but his national security adviser John Bolton did, as Bolton later said in a radio interview.

A few weeks earlier, the US government began a campaign to persuade its allies to exclude Huawei from the rollout of 5G broadband networks, as the Wall Street Journal first reported Nov. 23, 2018. The Meng Wanzhou arrest, the first use of extraterritorial powers in the case of an alleged sanctions violation, was a declaration of war on the Chinese national champion. In the ensuing months, the United States banned US technology firms from supplying components and software to Huawei and demanded that its allies boycott its 5G network systems.

The best speech on Brexit — from a shocking source By Thomas Lifson VIDEO

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/09/the_best_speech_on_brexit__from_a_shocking_source.html

Keep in mind that, according to most of our media (and even more so the European media), we are supposed to regard with fear the German “ultra-right-wing” political party, the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD).  Also, keep in mind that we are supposed to believe that the Brexit battle pits Brits against a united Europe that is horrified at their effort to shatter the European Union.

But, in fact, the arrogant, unaccountable transnational organizations, of which the E.U. is a leading example, have served global elites better than ordinary citizens of their constituent countries.  

Watch this speech in Germany’as parliament, the Bundestag, by AfD’s co-leader Alice Weidel, and start to realize that populism is a global force in the highly industrialized world and that the complaints we Americans feel against our elites, and the complaints Brits have against ceding control to the E.U., are all of a piece.  She does not hesitate to point her finger at France, which is leading the resistance to a negotiated Brexit.

The Life and Death of a Communist Tyrant A look at the long and brutal reign of Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274890/life-and-death-communist-tyrant-discover-networks

Robert Gabriel Mugabe, the longtime ruthless dictator of Zimbabwe, died on September 6 at a hospital in Singapore where he had been under observation for several months for an undisclosed illness. Let us take a close look at this communist tyrant’s long reign of racist brutality and inhumanity.

Mugabe was born in 1924 at the Kutama Mission in Zvimba, then Southern Rhodesia, only months after the country became a British crown colony. Son of a peasant farmer and carpenter, he began his education at a nearby Jesuit mission and then taught in various schools while studying for certification to go on to the University of Fort Hare in South Africa, from which he received a B.A. in English and History. He then studied at Drifontein, Salisbury (now Harare), Gwelo, and Tanzania, and eventually obtained by correspondence a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of London. Next he began teaching in Accra, Ghana (1958-60), where he met Sally Hayfron, his first wife.

When Mugabe studied at Fort Hare, which was paid for by apartheid South Africa’s white taxpayers, it was the premier black university of all English-speaking Africa, producing a number of famous African leaders. At that institution Mugabe became radicalized, as did such future “freedom presidents” as Tanzania’s Julius Nyerere and Zambia’s Kenneth Kaunda and future rivals over absolute power in Rhodesia like Herbert Chitep. By the time Mugabe returned to Rhodesia in 1960, he was a committed Leninist.

The term “Leninist” is used purposefully. There is no indication that Mugabe ever read Marx. If anything, he perhaps read Lenin and Stalin‘s brief treatises on how to take and keep power.

The Zimbabwe liberation movements of the 1970s — primarily Mugabe’s ZANU and its competitor ZAPU (Joshua Nkomo’s Zimbabwe African People’s Union) — had a confused history of idealistic rhetoric, Marxism-Leninism, and systematic atrocities.

Will Denmark Become Like Sweden? by Judith Bergman

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14839/denmark-crime-sweden

“Denmark is still relatively far from having reached the kind of crime epidemic that is currently plaguing Sweden. However, given the proximity of the two countries, the open borders and the apparent free flow of criminals across the borders — not to mention Denmark’s own crime level — there seems little to stop the situation in Denmark from getting out of control and becoming increasingly more like Sweden. ”

Sweden is exporting not only its bombings to Denmark. Gang crime, with its shootings and murders, has also traveled across the border.

Denmark has experienced 10 bombings since February. The latest took place on August 27 in a residential complex, Gersager, in the Greve area, very close to Copenhagen. No one was injured, but the building was seriously damaged. This year, the Swedish city of Malmö has experienced 19 bombings. An August 16 editorial in the Danish newspaper Berlingske Tidende said:

“No one wants Swedish conditions where shootings and bombings have reached an extreme degree. In addition to conflicts in the gang environment, there have been bombing attacks against police stations as well as courthouses, a town hall and the Swedish Tax Agency in Malmö in recent years.”

The piece was published after the Danish Tax Authority in Copenhagen was bombed on August 6, destroying its façade; one person was injured. Two Swedish citizens were charged with the attack. “The Swedish suspects have names that indicate that they have a different ethnic background than Swedish, but there is as yet no knowledge of the motives that may have driven them,” Berlingske wrote.

A few days later, on August 10, Copenhagen experienced another bombing that caused material damage, this time against a police station in Nørrebro.

Shortly after the bombings of the Danish Tax Authority and the Copenhagen police station, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen held a press conference. The government, she said, views the bombings “as an attack on our authorities and thus also our society”. She added that the government plans to strengthen the border with Sweden. “We have a challenge. It should not be the case that you can travel from Sweden to Denmark and place dynamite in the middle of Copenhagen”. She stressed that the border “has our full attention. And it needs to be strengthened”.