RUTHFULLY YOURS

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez called snap general elections for late April, bringing the curtain down early on a short-lived government and pitching Spain into a vote that is likely to produce a fragmented legislature and could showcase the rising strength of a new, hard-right party.
Mr. Sánchez, who heads the only established center-left party running a major European country, invoked snap parliamentary elections for April 28, a year earlier than the current end of the legislature’s scheduled four-year mandate.
The decision followed Mr. Sanchez’s failure Wednesday to secure parliamentary approval of this year’s budget after he lost critical support from Catalan separatist parties.
The April elections, which would mark the third time Spanish voters have gone to the polls in national elections in under four years, could usher in a period of protracted instability, as no obvious parliamentary majority seems set to emerge from the vote. No party enjoys more than about 25% support in current opinion polls.
Indeed, the fragmentation of Spain’s political landscape is such that Vox, a new hard-right party that enjoys about 10% of support in opinion polls, could prove the kingmaker in a new government.
The political situation in Spain reflects a trend across Europe, where legacy parties have faded and new, upstart forces steadily gain strength. The result has been monthslong political haggling in countries such as Germany, Italy and Sweden before governments can be formed. Even then, many administrations are shaky, minority governments that rely on fragile parliamentary coalitions. CONTINUE AT SITE

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13539/religion-free-speech

Courts and government bodies still find it hard to make useful distinctions between gratuitous, racist, or violent speech about Islam and Muslims on the one hand, and reasoned argument that questions aspects of Islam, or even the religion overall, from the point of view of human rights, on the other.

The situation in Europe is even more ambiguous. Most European states have laws that purportedly support free speech, yet accusations of hate speech and Islamophobia often lead to trials and sentencing can lead to imprisonment. This skewing of facts is one crucial reason why free speech needs to be defended.

It is more than ever necessary to educate the public and many of its leaders about both the benign and troubling facts of Islamic history, doctrine, and culture. Those leaders who must require a more solid grounding include the ones who deny that terrorism has genuine links to issues such as jihad warfare — and who are constantly told that “real” Islam is above rebuke.

We must indeed paint a positive picture of what so many Muslims contribute to their host societies. We should, for example, celebrate the way in which Muslim-Americans in Philadelphia launched an appeal that raised over $100,000 to help repair two Jewish cemeteries that had been vandalized. Or the Muslim veteran in Arkansas who volunteered to stand guard with others at any Jewish site that was threatened with attack.

Speaking and writing about Islam today requires discretion, sensitivity, and a good grasp of facts. Doing this is harder in most European countries than it is in the United States, where the First Amendment insists on powerful free speech rights. The need for sensitivity stems from the almost universal condemnation of “Islamophobia”, a mainly good-hearted response to democratic worries that innocent Muslims may be targeted with violence or hate speech, even as many (but far from all) seek to integrate themselves and their families into Western society.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/nigeria-braces-for-outcome-of-rancorous-presidential-showdown-11550226600

KADUNA, Nigeria—The largest election in Africa’s history is already shaping up to be one of its more volatile.

Some 84 million people are registered to vote on Saturday in a presidential race that will determine who controls Africa’s largest economy, top oil producer and an important U.S. counterterrorism ally.

The winner, in a bout between two heavyweights with a decadeslong history in a patronage-based political system, will face sluggish economic growth, entrenched corruption and a dizzying array of security threats.

In one corner is President Muhammadu Buhari, the former military junta leader who returned to power in 2015 elections on a promise to defeat Nigeria’s Islamist insurgency and quell rampant corruption.

In the other, Atiku Abubakar, a former vice president and businessman whose dominance of the logistics sector brought him wealth and decades of graft allegations, is pledging to reinvigorate the country’s moribund economy.

Polls show a race that is too close to call, with Mr. Buhari as the favorite, armed with the advantages of incumbency and a broader base among the more populous Muslim north.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinese-u-s-negotiators-expected-to-show-progress-on-trade-deal-framework-11550212318

BEIJING—Chinese and U.S. trade negotiators concluded weeklong talks Friday, making some progress toward a broad agreement aimed at defusing the countries’ trade tensions, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

The agreement would be in the form of a memorandum of understanding and could serve as the framework for a deal that President Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping could later finalize at a summit, the people said. Negotiators on both sides have agreed to continue the talks next week in Washington, according to the people.

During negotiations this week in Beijing, officials on both sides have been seeking to narrow the still-substantial gap between the concessions China is willing to offer and what the Trump administration will accept.

The memorandum in the works is expected to cover issues related to Beijing’s offers to purchase more American goods and services, accelerating China’s market-opening efforts in sectors such as financial services and manufacturing, as well as improving its protection of U.S. intellectual-property rights.

Thornier issues like how to enforce a trade deal are also expected to be included in the memorandum, the people said.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, the lead negotiator, and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin met with President Xi on Friday afternoon before returning to Washington. The U.S. delegation is expected to release a statement on the latest negotiations.

Throughout the talks, sharp divisions remained on items such as how Beijing can address U.S. complaints that China pressures U.S. companies to share technology and that its policies favor state-owned companies at the expense of U.S. competitors. CONTINUE AT SITE

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/british-teen-shamima-begum-who-fled-join-isis-wants-come-n971446

“Officially, it is U.K. policy to tell British women in this situation to get themselves to the nearest consulate to be repatriated. Unofficially, the government “would rather they did not come back,” Gardham said. “They don’t want jihadi brides back and they don’t want jihadis back.”

A British teenager who fled her home and joined the Islamic State in Syria says she now wants to come home — not because she is remorseful for joining the violent extremist group but so her unborn child will be safe.

The case of Shamima Begum will be seen as part of a wider dilemma for Western governments about what to do with people who want to return now that ISIS’ control of swaths of Iraq and Syria has all but dissolved.

Begum, 19, was one of three British schoolgirls who abandoned their lives in east London almost overnight in 2015, traveling to join ISIS and each marrying a group militant.

Her fate was largely unknown until Thursday when the British newspaper The Times tracked her down in a refugee camp. She said she wanted to come home but said she wasn’t sorry.

“I’m not the same silly little 15-year-old schoolgirl who ran away from Bethnal Green four years ago,” she told The Times, referring to her neighborhood in East London. “And I don’t regret coming here.”

Begum, who told the Times she is nine months pregnant, is like thousands of people all over the world who were lured by ISIS propaganda to join the militant movement then marauding the Middle East and beyond.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-47084374

Shortly after the piece was published, Yanxi Palace and Ruyi’s Royal Love in the Palace were pulled from state-run TV channels.

The shows are, however, still available on iQiyi, the place that Yanxi Palace was initially produced for and was first shown.
Rival versions of history

“It’s not the first time something like this has happened,” Prof Stanley Rosen, a China specialist at the University of Southern California, told the BBC.

“But I would say the censorship is certainly getting worse.

“Yanxi Palace was seen as promoting incorrect values, commercialism and consumerism; not the socialist core values that Beijing wants to see promoted.”

“For those who are overseeing those productions there should always some educational value or some promotion of Chinese cultural values or some sort of historical narrative that matter,” explains Manya Koetse, editor-in-chief of What’s on Weibo, a website tracking Chinese social media.

Prof Zhu Ying of the Film Academy at Hong Kong’s Baptist University told the BBC. “Censors tend to turn a blind eye to entertainment programs of frivolous nature.

“But that’s only until they become too popular and threaten social norms, morally and ideologically. Yanxi is a perfect example of such a show.”
Too successful abroad?

Another problem might have been the attention Yanxi Palace received from international audiences.

“It could be that the show became too popular outside China,” says Mr Rosen. “It’s a contradiction of wanting to succeed overseas but also wanting to control the message.”

Beijing wants Chinese culture to be promoted outside of China but showing the values that the authorities want to see portrayed. CONTINUE AT SITE

https://www.wsj.com/articles/power-struggle-electricity-outages-hit-south-africa-months-before-election-11550152801

The biggest test to the South African president’s power right now: Can he keep the power on?

Africa’s most-developed economy this week is experiencing its worst blackouts in years, with households, businesses and key infrastructure left without electricity for up to nine hours a day. The power cuts have hobbled the country’s mining sector, paralyzed traffic behind disabled stop lights and forced people to cook dinner outside on paraffin stoves—less than three months ahead of national elections that will determine whether President Cyril Ramaphosa, who ousted his scandal-battered predecessor last year, can win a full term.

At the center of the shortages is South Africa’s state-owned power utility Eskom, which supplies some 90% of the country’s electricity, but has been rattled by years of mismanagement and alleged corruption involving senior management. On Wednesday, the company warned that it was technically insolvent and would go bankrupt by April unless it gets a multibillion-rand government bailout.

On the WaneSouth Africa’s state-owned power utility,Eskom, has aging power plants and suffersfrom technical failures and has struggled touse much of its capacity.

Saddled with some 420 billion rand (around $30 billion) in debt—much of it government guaranteed—Eskom has become Mr. Ramaphosa’s biggest political headache. The company’s failure to generate sufficient electricity is eroding already anemic economic growth, while another bailout would add to the government’s rising debt load.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13715/turkey-jihadist-literature

“It is really sorrowful to live in a country that silences, prosecutes, jails its authors and forces them to live in exile,” Hasan Cemal wrote in January.

It is worse than “sorrowful,” however, that writers in Turkey who promote jihad are given a pass.

The Turkish journalist Hasan Cemal recently bemoaned that a publishing house rejected his latest book, Sorrow, on the grounds that it would lead to the imprisonment of both the author and the publisher for expressing liberal views antithetical to the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. According to Cemal, the works of other well-known writers in Turkey — such as Oya Baydar, Nedim Gürsel, Aslı Erdoğan, Baskın Oran and Nurcan Baysal — have met a similar fate, for the same reason.

Not all authors and publishers in Turkey, however, live in such fear. For instance, the Turkish translation of the book Al-Wala’ Wal-Bara (“Loving and Hating for the Sake of Allah Alone”), written by al Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri, are freely published by Beyaz Minare and distributed by Benli.

Many other publishers and media outlets in Turkey that not only promote violent jihad, but also maintain ties to terrorist organizations, continue functioning. The staff of the magazine İslam Dünyası (“Islamic World”), for instance, was under indictment in 2012 for links to al Qaeda.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272788/rushdie-fatwa-thirty-years-later-bruce-bawer

Thirty years ago today, the then ruler of Iran, the Ayatollah Khomeini, sent a valentine to Salman Rushdie in the form of a fatwa.

Rushdie, born in 1947 in Bombay (now Mumbai), had attended Cambridge, settled in Britain, and become famous with his second novel, Midnight’s Children (1981). His fourth novel, The Satanic Verses (1988), featured a storyline about Muhammed and the Koran that was deemed blasphemous throughout the Muslim world, leading the novel to be banned in over a dozen countries. The fatwa condemned Rushdie, his publishers, and his editors to death, and called on “all valiant Muslims wherever they may be in the world to kill them without delay, so that no one will dare insult the sacred beliefs of Muslims henceforth.” Khomeini’s government announced that anyone who assassinated Rushdie would receive $6 million, if he survived, and instant martyrdom in Heaven, if he didn’t. The fact that Rushdie, an outspoken leftist, had joined many other cultural-elite types in supporting the overthrow of the Shah apparently didn’t impress Khomeini enough to keep him from ordering Rushdie’s murder.

At that time, the word fatwa was unfamiliar outside the Muslim world. Indeed, for most people in the West, the idea of the long arm of Islam reaching out from that primitive corner of the planet and into the civilized West was a relatively new idea – even though, in historical terms, it was a very old idea, dating back to Islam’s seventh-century founding. Even the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre was widely seen not as a strike against the Free World that was motivated by Islamic ideology but, rather, as an act of Palestinian Jew-hatred