RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/hong-kong-police-fire-tear-gas-at-demonstrators-as-tensions-flare-11564319424

Police and demonstrators clashed in Hong Kong this weekend in some of the fiercest confrontations to rock the semiautonomous Chinese city, fueling apprehension that a summer of protests against the encroachment of Beijing is veering into dangerous new territory.

Late Sunday, a normally bustling commercial district was fogged over in tear gas as police with shields and gas masks fought to contain thousands of protesters, many clad in black and wearing yellow hard hats.

The day before, similar clashes unfolded in an outlying district of Hong Kong where a week earlier a group of thugs with sticks and rods beat up subway passengers, some of whom were returning from a mass march that day.

The sustained clashes at opposite ends of the territory marked the first time since protests began in June that such intense confrontations took place on back-to-back days. Adding to a sense of disorder, the demonstrations gained momentum even as police resorted to more aggressive tactics to tamp them down. That included making more arrests, deploying more tear gas, charging with riot sticks and firing nonlethal projectiles into crowds now adept at erecting barricades from dismantled fencing. Hong Kong police announced early Monday that they had made at least 49 arrests Sunday.

Meanwhile, Hong Kong demonstrators, previously known for civility, are now experimenting with more dangerous tactics like setting small fires in occupied roadways.

“For Hong Kong this is very serious, among the worst we have seen,” said Kin-ming Liu, a longtime Hong Kong journalist and opinion writer. “It looks very bad and I honestly don’t know how it will play out.”

Compounding the apprehension gripping this city is the widespread perception that its Beijing-backed leadership is unable to provide a political resolution to the unrest, which began two months ago in opposition to a planned law that would make it easier for Beijing to extradite Hong Kong residents for trial in mainland China.

With hundreds of thousands of marchers on the streets in June, the city’s Chief Executive Carrie Lam put the controversial extradition law on hold. But demonstrators, who want it scrapped entirely, were unsatisfied with what they saw as a half measure.

In the weeks since, the intensity of the protests has grown, adding to calls for Mrs. Lam to resign. Mrs. Lam has called for an end to violence and has said she has no plans to step down.

The embattled leader, who hadn’t been seen in public since last Monday, attended the graduation ceremony of the Military Summer Camp for Hong Kong Youth on Sunday, according to a government press release.

“Young people are the driving force of the development of Hong Kong,” Mrs. Lam said in the speech, while thanking the Hong Kong garrison of China’s People’s Liberation Army for its support of the camp.

The Chinese central government’s office responsible for Hong Kong and Macau said it would hold a news conference Monday to address the protests, which have stretched into their eighth weekend.

Foreign companies appear to be suffering. In a survey published Monday in Asia, the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong found that more international businesses are feeling pessimistic about short-term prospects for the city. Respondents said increased violence and political brinkmanship fueled the perception that Hong Kong is a riskier place to do business. The survey, which polled sectors in financial services, logistics and technology, found disrupted supply chains and consumption have caused short-term revenue hits for some companies.

The protesters’ rallying cries have become broader—including chants for a freer Hong Kong after Beijing chipped away at the rights and freedoms cherished by local citizens, making potential resolution more elusive. The city’s government has in the past few years outlawed a political party that advocated independence, ousted legislators, and prosecuted opposition activists.

Ray Chan, who is 28 years old, said the local government’s inability to find a resolution spurred him to take to the streets on Sunday night in Hong Kong. “We’re out here trying to force the action,” he said. CONTINUE AT SITE

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274419/russian-train-terror-stephen-brown

After airplanes, Islamic terrorists seem most fixated on attacking trains in their worldwide rampage to kill as many infidels as possible.

This was again evident in a Russian courtroom this month where seven jihadists were sentenced to “lengthy prison terms” of between 15 and 21 years in maximum-security prison colonies for plotting to stage a collision on a high-speed railway line between Moscow and St. Petersburg.

“…they were suspected members of the extremist group Islamic State and …they were being directed from abroad via the messaging app Telegram,” stated a Radio Free Europe report.

According to the evidence presented in court, the jihadists “attached a brake holder block on the tracks aiming at crashing the high-Speed, German-built Sapsan train so that it collided into another train.” The Sapsan train carries the “business elite between Russia’s two largest cities at speeds up to 155 miles per hour.”

Fortunately, the plan didn’t work. The train “rammed through the obstacle” without the engine derailing. But five railroad cars suffered damages totaling $850,000.

The terrorists were arrested mid-2017 in the midst of carrying out a new plot to again bomb the same railway line. They said they were protesting Russia’s military involvement in Syria.

The seven were citizens of Tajikistan living in St. Petersburg. Tajikistan is a former Soviet republic in Central Asia, but is now an independent, Muslim-majority country.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14606/iran-drown-fish

A tougher profile, attacks on tankers and other soft targets, gesticulations by Hezbollah and Hamas, and more hostages are one aspect of the scheme that Tehran is currently working on. The other is a desperate attempt at appearing ready to enter into “constructive talks”. That yarn is marketed by Mohammad Javad Zarif, who is still retained to play Foreign Minister in Western forums and TV studios.

In New York, Zarif added the promise of addressing another demand, that the so-called “nuke deal” be rehashed to make limits on Iran’s nuclear program permanent rather than limited to 10, 15 or 25 years. That could be done, at least in part, by Tehran signing the Additional Protocols of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), something that the Islamic Republic had promised to do during Obama’s presidency but didn’t.

Trump’s sanctions, which cost the US nothing, are placing the Islamic Republic under a degree of pressure it has never known. This is why Khamenei, his huffing-and-puffing notwithstanding, is ready to do what he is told, provided he can save a minimum of face. His chief aim at present is to survive the rough patch created for him by Trump. That could be done if he is allowed to sell even a million barrels of oil a day to finance his pet projects and surrogates at home and abroad. Will Trump be tempted to declare victory and let the Islamic Republic off the hook at a time it is reeling under pressure?

The US and its closest allies will have to decide whether to let the Islamic Republic off the hook yet again, and, as always, in exchange for partial and largely cosmetic concessions.

Is the Islamic Republic collecting fresh “assets” with which to enter into a possible dialogue with the American “Great Satan”? The pattern of news related to Iran in the past few weeks may make “yes” a plausible answer. Tehran has already carried out a series of attacks on oil tankers in Fujairah and close to the Iranian Jask Peninsula. Its surrogates in Iraq have fired a number of rockets at targets connected with the US presence in that country. Tehran’s Yemeni surrogates, the Houthi militia, have fired a number of missiles to raise the tension without affecting the overall military situation. Last week the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) seized two British-flagged oil tankers, releasing one after a demonstration of force coupled with a stern warning.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14360/standoff-between-civilizations

Not all people who worry about a replacement of civilizations are necessarily violent or even incorrect. They appear to be frightened folk, sent over the edge by matters they may feel beyond control. In Europe and the United States, they have witnessed wave upon wave of attacks by individuals and groups openly espousing violence in the name of religion. They seem to fear that their own governments are doing too little to protect them and their families from future attacks.

“What unites these groups ideologically is a belief that Europe is facing a ‘great replacement’ by Muslim and African immigrants. And they want something done about it.” — Marion MacGregor, “The push from Europe’s young new right”, Infomigrants.net; May 5, 2018.

Political correctness, often an extreme form of denial of reality, has made it increasingly hard for even the most reasonable and careful of thinkers to say anything critical about Islam…efforts to block fair criticism of aspects of Islam can become unjust forms of censorship.

The number of deaths is not always a guide to the impact of a tragedy. One of the most recent tragedies had a high, but far from record-making, toll of fatalities. First, and as a basis for comparison, it is worth noting that the November 2015 Islamic State attacks in Paris slaughtered 90 people in the Bataclan Theatre and more elsewhere in the city, for a total of 130 deaths. The Islamist truck attack on a single stretch of road in Nice on 14 July 2016 took no fewer than 86 lives. On Easter Sunday, 21 April 2019, around 253 innocent people, including many children, were slaughtered during radical Muslim attacks on churches and three hotels in Sri Lanka, the largest death toll since the nearly 3,000 on September 11, 2001.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14601/boris-johnson-world-stage

Mr Johnson’s determination to help Britain reclaim its status as a leading world power after the drift of the May years is reflected in the stature of his appointments, especially regarding Britain’s engagement with the outside world.

In one of Mrs May’s last acts as prime minister, Britain declined an offer of American military support to protect British shipping in the Gulf, resulting in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard hijacking a British-registered oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz and holding it captive in the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas.

Thus, with politicians of this calibre occupying key positions in the new British government, Mr Johnson now has a golden opportunity to revive Britain’s standing on the world stage, one where the close relationship between Washington and London will be one of the pillars of Britain’s dynamic new approach.

The appointment of Boris Johnson as Britain’s new prime minister offers the serious prospect of a radical improvement in the bilateral ties between Washington and London following the froideur [chill] that came to define the transatlantic relationship under the outgoing prime minister, Theresa May.

While, in public, Mrs May offered loyal pledges of support to Donald Trump, and professed to enjoy a warm personal relationship with the American president, the reality was that the personal chemistry between the two leaders was often awkward, with Mrs May often failing to grasp Mr Trump’s radical approach to global affairs.

The differences between the two are best summed up by Mrs May’s failure to heed Mr Trump’s advice on handling the challenging Brexit negotiations with the European Union. Mr Trump suggested London needed to play hardball with Brussels, even suggesting at one point that the UK should sue the EU as part of its negotiating strategy to demonstrate that it meant business.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14601/boris-johnson-world-stage

Mr Johnson’s determination to help Britain reclaim its status as a leading world power after the drift of the May years is reflected in the stature of his appointments, especially regarding Britain’s engagement with the outside world.

In one of Mrs May’s last acts as prime minister, Britain declined an offer of American military support to protect British shipping in the Gulf, resulting in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard hijacking a British-registered oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz and holding it captive in the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas.

Thus, with politicians of this calibre occupying key positions in the new British government, Mr Johnson now has a golden opportunity to revive Britain’s standing on the world stage, one where the close relationship between Washington and London will be one of the pillars of Britain’s dynamic new approach.

The appointment of Boris Johnson as Britain’s new prime minister offers the serious prospect of a radical improvement in the bilateral ties between Washington and London following the froideur [chill] that came to define the transatlantic relationship under the outgoing prime minister, Theresa May.

While, in public, Mrs May offered loyal pledges of support to Donald Trump, and professed to enjoy a warm personal relationship with the American president, the reality was that the personal chemistry between the two leaders was often awkward, with Mrs May often failing to grasp Mr Trump’s radical approach to global affairs.

The differences between the two are best summed up by Mrs May’s failure to heed Mr Trump’s advice on handling the challenging Brexit negotiations with the European Union. Mr Trump suggested London needed to play hardball with Brussels, even suggesting at one point that the UK should sue the EU as part of its negotiating strategy to demonstrate that it meant business.

This advice was completely contrary to Mrs May’s mindset, as prevarication, obfuscation and a desperate desire to avoid confrontation at all costs were the characteristics that defined her premiership. Consequently, the negotiations resulted in the EU dictating the terms of the settlement. The subsequent withdrawal agreement was deemed so unacceptable that it failed to win the approval of the House of Commons, thereby ending Mrs May’s premiership.

Moreover, throughout this sorry saga, relations between London and Washington continued to deteriorate to the point where, in one of Mrs May’s last acts as prime minister, Britain declined an offer of American military support to protect British shipping in the Gulf, resulting in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard hijacking a British-registered oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz and holding it captive in the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas.

https://issuesinsights.com/2019/07/26/donald-boris-can-be-the-21st-centurys-ron-maggie/

Having taken the prime minister’s seat in Britain, Boris Johnson might not face Churchill’s existential crisis upon taking office in May 1940, but some instant Churchillian nerve is still called for. Whether he is up to the task of outplaying Iran after it seized the British-flagged oil tanker Stena Impero in a tit-for-tat move in the Strait of Hormuz will be known soon enough.

The U.S. will have Johnson’s back, but Britain is too major a power not to take care of its own business against the world’s worst terrorist state; so Boris is under the spotlight. At stake is freedom of passage for a vast amount of the world’s energy resources.

Passing that test, however, is but the prelude to more daunting challenges, and an opportunity for greatness in governing unseen since Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher used the famed “special relationship” between the U.S. and Britain to upend economic orthodoxy and ultimately redraw the map of the world.

The Cold War, with its threat of mutual assured destruction, is won, thanks in no small part to Reagan and Thatcher resisting the unilateral nuclear disarmers. But the tasks that President Trump and Britain’s similarly sharp-elbowed new leader face are in some ways harder, and certainly more complex.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/07/a_brave_soldier_in_the_fight_for_minority_rights_in_bangladesh.html

On July 17th, President Trump met with more than two dozen survivors of religious conflicts, including victims from Iraq, Tibet, China and Bangladesh.  Several individuals stepped forward at the Second Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom to tell their stories in hopes of informing him and gaining a commitment for intervention.

Among them was Priya Saha, an officer with the Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council (BHBCUC), who was determined to obtain Trump’s assistance with the dire situation faced by minorities in her country.  She testified that since Bangladesh became independent in 1972 and Islam was declared the state religion five years later, non-Muslims have had their land confiscated and, among other atrocities, have been raped and murdered.  Millions of people have disappeared or have fled the country, she said.

As a result of her testimony, the government threatened Saha with sedition charges, angry mobs demonstrated outside her home, she and her family have been targeted on social media and she was expelled from the council.  All this occurred in a Muslim country which claims to observe religious freedoms and declares that all faiths live in harmony.  

As the former organization secretary for the non-profit BHBCUC, Saha is well-versed in the problems resulting from the infringement of minority rights in Bangladesh.  The organization was established  in 1988 to protect the rights of religious and ethnic minorities in the country after Islam was instituted as the state religion by constitutional amendment in 1977.  Secularism had originally been a fundamental principle of Bangladesh’s 1972 Constitution.  But this founding principle was altered by then-President, Ziaur Rahman, who replaced the non-sectarian text with a commitment to the “absolute trust and faith in Almighty Allah.”  Over the years, many challenges arose against the constitutional amendment amid calls for Bangladesh to return to secularism.  All have been rejected and Islam remains as the official state religion.

https://www.peaceandtolerance.org/

The widely known and well-documented fact that blacks are enslaved by Arabs and Muslims all over Africa and in the Middle East is practically a taboo subject in the human rights movement and in the media. It may be a poison pill for black anti-Semites.

We learn today that black Mauritanian women are trafficked to Saudi Arabia, where they are enslaved as maids in private Arab ouseholds. Lured with offerings of respectable nursing or teaching jobs, they are starved and subjected to regular rape attempts and further sexual abuse.

Indeed, the enslavement of blacks by Muslims and Arabs in five African countries is also well-documented, including video of a slave auction in Libya from 2017 in which a black man was sold for $400.

Of particular interest, is that practically all Mauritanians were converted to Islam during the jihadconquest of that area in the eighth century. Though according to Islam, Muslims are not supposed to enslave fellow Muslims, here, as it did in the West, racism trumps religious doctrine. 

Minister Farrakhan may be the most distraught by this phenomenon, as his mission is to persuade American blacks’ path to authentic freedom is through Islam.

You can break through the wall of silence — and bring the plight of these abandoned slaves to light — by disseminating this note.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274363/16-muslim-countries-endorse-china-forcing-muslims-daniel-greenfield

The war of letters began when 22 countries penned a letter to the United Nations Human Rights Council condemning China’s treatment of Uighurs and “other Muslim and minorities communities.”

The letter in defense of Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang was signed by France, Germany, Canada, Sweden and 18 other, mostly Western and European, countries. The case of the missing Muslim signatories was solved when the People’s Republic of China fired back with its own letter signed by 37 countries.

This letter in defense of China’s crackdown on Islam was signed by 16 Muslim countries.

While some of the Muslim signatories were drawn from African countries, the letter was also signed by ambassadors for the leading Arab governments including Qatar, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Syria, and Kuwait. Pakistan, the world’s second largest Muslim country, also signed on.

While Western governments wailed about Muslim human rights in China, the leading Sunni nations of the world signed off on a letter praising “China’s remarkable achievements in the field of human rights.” Mandatory abortions, organ harvesting and the mass murder of millions are remarkable achievements.

No doubt about it.

The world’s top Muslim governments didn’t just settle for abstract praise of China’s human rights. Instead they explicitly defended China’s crackdown on Muslims in Xinjiang.