RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/06/chinas_food_supply_imperiled_.html

China’s food supply is being imperiled as new reports warn that up to 50 percent of China’s 440 million pigs are now at risk from African Swine Fever infection.

The South China Morning Post reported that Chairman Chan Kin Yip of the Federation of Hong Kong Agricultural Associations claimed that Chinese mainland pig farmers told him African Swine Fever has spread to 30 percent of mainland pigs, while another Hong Kong pig farmer based in China told Yip the exposure rate is as high as 50 percent.

With $23.8 billion of agricultural imports from the U.S. in 2017, retaliatory tariffs directly aimed at President Trump’s rural voter base was expected to be China’s hammer to bludgeon the U.S. into abandoning its Trade War. Accounting for 17 percent of U.S. agricultural exports, Chinese customers were number one in soybeans; number two in pork and hay; number three in dairy and poultry; number four in beef, and number five in wheat. 

First detected in August 2018, the raging pandemic of highly communicable African Swine Fever has spread to every mainland province and Hong Kong. The virus causes blackened lesions, diarrhea, abortion, respiratory illness, and then death in 7 to 10 days.

With production declines of -35 percent and prices spiking +40 percent, the disease is wreaking havoc on the China’s $128 billion a year pork industry. Although Beijing has encouraged the provinces to provide financial support to large-scale pig farms, the loss of sales and cost to cull up to 220 million infected pigs is a huge burden on the people.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/06/islams_war_on_the_christian_cross.html

A Muslim migrant in Rome recently stabbed a Christian man in the throat for wearing a crucifix around his neck.  The assailant, a 37-year-old Moroccan, is accused of attempted homicide; “religious hate” is cited as an “aggravating factor” in the crime.

This is hardly the first “religious hate” crime to occur in the context of the cross in Italy.  Among others,

A Muslim boy of African origin picked on, insulted, and eventually beat a 12-year-old girl during school because she too was wearing a crucifix. 
A Muslim migrant invaded an old church in Venice and attacked its large, 300-year-old cross, breaking off one of its arms, while shouting, “All that is in a church is false!”
After a crucifix was destroyed in close proximity to a populated mosque, Cinisello Balsamo’s mayor said concerning the identity of the culprit(s): “Before we put a show of unity with Muslims, let’s have them begin by respecting our civilization and our culture.”

What is it about the crucifix that makes some Muslims react violently?  Islamic hostility to the cross is an unwavering phenomenon — one that crosses continents and centuries; one that is very much indicative of Islam’s innate hostility to Christianity.

For starters, not only is the cross the quintessential symbol of Christianity — for all denominations, including most forms of otherwise iconoclastic Protestantism — but it symbolizes the fundamental disagreement between Christians and Muslims.   As Professor Sidney Griffith explains, “The cross and the icons publicly declared those very points of Christian faith which the Koran, in the Muslim view, explicitly denied: that Christ was the Son of God and that he died on the cross.”  Accordingly, “the Christian practice of venerating the cross… often aroused the disdain of Muslims,” so that from the start of the Muslim conquests of Christian lands there was an ongoing “campaign to erase the public symbols of Christianity, especially the previously ubiquitous sign of the cross.”

This “campaign” traces back to the Muslim prophet Muhammad. He reportedly “had such a repugnance to the form of the cross that he broke everything brought into his house with its figure upon it,” wrote one historian (Sword and Scimitar, p. 10).  Muhammad also claimed that at the end times Jesus (the Muslim ‘Isa) himself would make it a point to “break the cross.”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14256/cyprus-turkey-illegal-drilling

“Although Turkey has been violating Cyprus’s sovereignty since 1974, the current highly volatile internal political and economic situation in Turkey has made the Turkish government get even more aggressive in the eastern Mediterranean…. For Mr. Erdogan’s plans to succeed, Cyprus needs to be eliminated.” — Harris Samaras, an expert on the Cypriot EEZ and chairman of the international investment banking firm Pytheas.

“Mr. Erdogan is aware that it will be impossible for Turkey to achieve its goals of regional hegemony if US interests in particular, but also French ones, develop a firm foothold in Cyprus. This is his biggest fear.” — Harris Samaras.

“The East Med Pipeline, then — which has been started with the blessing of the US — is of the utmost importance. At the last trilateral meeting of Israel, Cyprus and Greece, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was present and supported the project. If it goes ahead, it will be a major slap in the face for Turkey’s energy plans.” — Harris Samaras.

“Concrete steps should be taken to stop Turkish violations against Cyprus’s EEZ. Sanctions should be imposed at the level of the European Council to the persons and companies responsible for the drilling. All pre-accession funds to Turkey should be blocked, and Turkish access to loans by the European Investment Bank should be eliminated. Additional options, if Turkey escalates the situation further, are imposing sanctions on Turkey’s banking sector and freezing the accession process altogether. The US also needs to lift the irrational arms embargo it imposed on the Republic of Cyprus in 1987, and help it to rearm and modernize its ability to defend itself, while keeping the UN peace keeping mission (UNFICYP) intact.” — Theodoros Tsakiris, assistant professor of energy policy and geopolitics at the University of Nicosia.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2019/06/05/donald-trump-queen-elizabeth-75th-anniversary-d-day-invasion/1349585001/
PORTSMOUTH, England – On the final leg of his three-day state visit to Britain, President Donald Trump joined Queen Elizabeth II and leaders from around the world in paying respects to Allied service members who 75 years ago took part in the D-Day landings that helped liberate Europe from Nazi Germany’s military occupation.

The Normandy landings on June 6, 1944, were the largest land, air and sea invasion in history and Portsmouth Naval Base, near where the commemorations took place Wednesday, served as a key launch pad for those forces.

In an address, the queen said that “75 years ago, hundreds of thousands of young soldiers, sailors and airmen left these shores in the cause of freedom. In a broadcast to the nation at that time, my father, King George VI, said: ‘What is demanded from us all is something more than courage and endurance; we need a revival of spirit, a new unconquerable resolve.’ That is exactly what those brave men brought to the battle, as the fate of the world depended on their success.”

Earlier, in a special message to mark the occasion, the queen said: “At this time of reflection for veterans of the conflict and their families, I am sure that these commemorations will provide an opportunity to honor those who made extraordinary sacrifices to secure freedom in Europe. They must never be forgotten.”

In addition to Trump, the queen and Prime Minister Theresa May hosted 14 other leaders in Portsmouth, including France’s Emmanuel Macron, Germany’s Angela Merkel and Canada’s Justin Trudeau. Prince Charles attended with representatives from every country that participated in the storming of the beaches along France’s northwestern coast in a surprise attack involving 5,000 ships, 11,000 airplanes and 150,000 soldiers. More than 4,000 Allied service members – more than half of them American – died in the assault credited with changing the course of the war.

The event featured a number of British and American veterans of the invasion. Their chests bore ribbons and medals and a few of them clutched canes. The story of the build-up to the battle was told through live music, performances and readings.

“We must never forget,” said D-Day veteran John Jenkins, 99, addressing a crowd of more than a thousand seated in folding chairs before an amphitheater-type stage. About 300 World War II veterans attended the ceremony on England’s south coast.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/same-bus-different-driver/

One of the most remarkable men I have ever met is Evan Mawarire, a pastor and democracy leader from Zimbabwe. In July 2017, I wrote a piece about him called “Zimbabwe’s Freedom Pastor: Evan Mawarire, the anti-Mugabe.” Robert Mugabe ruled over Zimbabwe from April 1980 to November 2017.

In May 2017, I did a Q&A podcast with Pastor Evan at the Oslo Freedom Forum. At that time, he was out on bail. The authorities had let him have his passport because his parents had turned the title deed to their home over to them. That was the deal: title deed for passport.

Six months later, Mugabe fell from power. This year, in May 2019, Evan Mawarire was back at the Oslo Freedom Forum. I again did a podcast with him: here.

We sat at the same table as before. He was once more out on bail. Once more, his parents had turned over their title deed, in exchange for his passport. Etc., etc.

When we talked, I shared with Evan an old American saying (or perhaps it is British): “second verse, same as the first.” He shared a Zimbabwean saying with me: “same bus, different driver.”

The current regime in Zimbabwe is just as bad as Mugabe’s. In fact, it is a continuation of it. As Pastor Evan says, Mugabe is gone but the Mugabe system remains.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/06/angela-merkel-germany-anti-american-views/

Merkel’s evident anti-Americanism is a familiar refrain. 

The more things change, well, the more they . . . So it is with the perpetual German resentments of the U.S.

Recently German chancellor Angela Merkel reminded us of that German fixation, when she made some astounding statements to the German media that revealed what many Americans had long ago surmised.

Merkel all but announced that Germany, or for that matter Europe itself, is no longer really an ally of the United States: “There is no doubt that Europe needs to reposition itself in a changed world. . . . The old certainties of the post-war order no longer apply.”

She insisted that Germany views the democratic United States as not much different from autocratic Russia and Communist China: Urging Europe to present a united front in the face of Russia, China, and the U.S., she said, “They are forcing us, time and again, to find common positions.” And Merkel concluded that therefore Germany must find “political power” commensurate with its economic clout to forge a new independent European path.

In other words, in the calculus of the supposedly sober and judicious Merkel, the democracy that saved Europe twice from a carnivorous Germany — and Germany once from itself and once from becoming a Soviet vassal — is now similar to the world’s two largest authoritarian dictatorships, nations that not so long ago murdered respectively 30 million and 70 million of their own citizens. And how odd a sentiment for someone who grew up in Communist East Germany, a nightmarish state whose collapse was largely attributable to the Reagan-era effort to bankrupt and roll back the Soviet empire.