RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/05/vladimir-bukovsky-legendary-dissident-conversation/

All Soviet dissidents are legendary, to one degree or another. Vladimir Bukovsky is especially so. He is held in awe by people whom the rest of us hold in awe. I’m speaking of his fellow dissidents. Bukovsky is a dissident’s dissident, so to speak.

A book of his, which originally appeared in 1995, is now being published in English for the first time. On his back patio, amid chirping birds, I talk with him about this and many other subjects.

And where is the back patio? In Cambridge, England, where Bukovsky has lived since the mid-1970s.

Bukovsky has had mighty health struggles — but he indulges his listener, his interviewer, gladly and ably.

• He was born in 1942 and quickly became dissident. Enrolled at Moscow State University for biology, he was kicked out at age 19. He had criticized the Komsomol, i.e., the Young Communist League.

I ask him, “Do you think you were born this way? Born to stick your neck out, born to get into trouble?” “Yeah,” he says. “There’s nothing you can do about it. I would feel uncomfortable if I tried to hide what I believe. It’s against my nature.”

https://saraacarter.com/leftist-finnish-party-embraces-homophobic-racist-mp/

How odd – the Social Democrat Party (SDP) in Finland just minted a brand new member of Parliament who insulted gays, Somalis, America, Israel, Jews and Sunni Muslims. The SDP is the leftist party of progressives, kind of like the Social Democrat wing of our own Democratic party. Notwithstanding their political “convictions,” the party has stood by the man whose election victory last month gave the SDP the majority over the right wing Finns Party.

The 35-year-old MP in question, pro-Iran Iraqi refugee Hussein al-Taee, enabled the SDP to reach 40 members in the Parliament, narrowly besting the Finns Party showing of 39. For months Al-Taee denied authorship of the offensive statements, that is until his party won the election.

Why a leftist party embraces as one of its own someone who ridiculed gays or Somalis on his Facebook page at first blush is puzzling. His homophobic post was perhaps the most shocking. In 2011 al-Taee posted a scandalously scatological reference to a gay Finn who attended a public event with Adam Lambert, an internationally known gay entertainer.

It is less surprising, if no less inappropriate, that Al-Taee slammed the U.S., Jews and Israel, and even Sunni Muslims.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/0/european-parliament-elections-2019-date-does-uk-vote-even/

With the date for the European Elections coming closer, we take a look at when the vote is, why we are still expected to take part and what it means for British MEPs.

Here’s everything you need to know ahead of polling day in May.
When is the vote?

The polls will take place on May 23 2019.
Why is the UK taking part?

Because Brexit has now been delayed for six months, with a new date set for October 31 2019, which means the UK must now participate in EU polls.
Seems crazy if the UK is leaving anyway. Can EU polls still be avoided?

Yes, but the timetable is very tight indeed. Leading Cabinet members are determined to avoid holding the elections, but that will mean Parliament agreeing on the Withdrawal Agreement well before the end of April.

The EU are insistent that the Withdrawal Agreement must be approved and all of the implementing legislation must be passed to avoid the need to hold EU elections.

Given the generally low expectations of an imminent breakthrough in cross-party talks, the overwhelming likelihood now is that the UK will take part in the polls.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14210/chinese-pakistan-sex-trafficking

Once purchased, women and girls are typically locked in a room and raped repeatedly, with the goal of getting them pregnant quickly so they can provide a baby for the family. After giving birth, some are allowed to escape — but forced to leave their children behind.

That women and girls are being abused throughout Asia is sickening enough, and warrants immediate attention by the international community. But that Christian girls in particular are being targeted in Pakistan makes the current prostitution ring a double human-rights abuse that needs urgent looking into.

The New York-based international non-governmental organization, Human Rights Watch, warned on April 26 that “Pakistan’s government should be alarmed by recent reports of trafficking of women and girls to China. These allegations are disturbingly similar to the pattern of trafficking of ‘brides’ to China from at least five other Asian countries.”

One week later, Pakistani authorities arrested 12 suspects — eight Chinese nationals and four Pakistanis — in a case involving the sex trafficking of young Pakistani women to China. Many had been sent as so-called “brides.” Most of them, some as young as 13, belong to Pakistan’s Christian minority.

After the arrests, Jameel Ahmed Khan, a senior official at Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), told Gatestone Institute that a preliminary investigation revealed that the sex traffickers lured young Christian girls from poverty-stricken families to China by promising them a “better life” there — and providing their parents with a monthly stipend. Khan said that although it appears that hundreds of girls have been sold this way into prostitution, the exact number is under investigation.

https://www.thesouthafrican.com/2019-south-africa-election-results-national-provincial-all-votes/

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s ruling ANC won re-election on Friday with an absolute majority in parliament, results showed, but with diminished support, complicating economic revival and anti-corruption efforts.

From ballot papers running out, scanners malfunctioning and allegations of double voting, more than half of the parties contesting the 2019 elections have vowed to take action against the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC).

Nonetheless, after a lengthy counting and auditing process, the results are out. Well, almost. The IEC first said they expected to reach the 90% counting mark by 21:00 on Thursday, but that turned out to be widely ambitious.

Then, they expected everything to be concluded by midnight on 10 May. After that clock struck, there were a few carriages yet to turn into pumpkins.

But the completion was at nearly 99% by 00:12 with Gauteng, one of the most hotly contested provinces, having the largest number of voting districts outstanding, the total vote count completed was 91%.

The rest of the results were pretty clear, however.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14207/persecution-of-christians-february

During just the first two weeks of February, “[a]t least 10 incidents of vandalism and desecration of Catholic churches have been reported in France.” — Catholicherald.co.uk, February 15, 2019; France.

“The attack was so terrible that Haroon’s kidney was cut into two pieces” from the stabbings….After he was rushed to hospital, “doctors were forced to remove his kidney.” As is common in such cases, police and local authorities tried to pressure the family not to press charges against the Muslim youths…. — Persecution.org; International Christian Concern; February 21, 2019; Pakistan.

“A group of kidnappers meets in a mosque to discuss potential victims. They keep a close eye on Christians’ houses and monitor everything that’s going on. On that basis, they weave a spider’s web around [the girls]…. I remember a Coptic Christian girl from a rich, well-known family in Minya. She was kidnapped by five Muslim men. They held her in a house, stripped her and filmed her naked. In the video, one of them also undressed. They threatened to make the video public if the girl wouldn’t marry him…. The kidnappers receive large amounts of money. Police can help them in different ways, and when they do, they might also receive a part of the financial reward the kidnappers are paid by the Islamisation organisations.” — Testimony by “G”, Persecution.org, February 19, 2019, Egypt.

Massacres of Christians

Nigeria: A number of fatal Islamic terror attacks targeting Christians occurred throughout February:

February 10: Muslim Fulani herdsmen killed 10 Christians and an unborn child. Armed herdsmen in large numbers had surrounded the Christian village around 11 p.m. the night before. “We heard gun shots, and this forced me and my family to remain in our bedrooms as it was difficult for us to run out of the house,” said one survivor. “The Fulani gunmen surrounded our house and were shooting and shouting, ‘Allahu akbar’ [‘Allah is greatest’]. They killed my father, mother, two brothers, and one of my sisters-in-law.” The attack came as a complete surprise, even for the village head: “We have never had any misunderstanding with the Fulani herdsmen, so I don’t know why they attacked our village,” he said. “Ten members of my community, including a pregnant woman, were killed during the attack, thus making the unborn child to be the eleventh victim.”

https://quadrant.org.au/

From Mark Latham’s maiden speech to the NSW Legislative Council.

…they preach diversity but practice a suffocating cultural conformity, wanting everyone to be just like them.

They argue for inclusion but as soon as a Christian, a conservative, a libertarian, a nationalist, a working class larrikin, an outsider from the vast suburbs and regions of our nation disagrees with them, they crank up their PC-outrage machine to exclude them from society.

They are tolerant of everything except dissenting values and opinions – meaning, of course, they are tolerant of nothing that matters, only themselves.

This is the Leftist curse through the ages: the recurring history of those who so badly crave control over others, they lose control over themselves.

In their lust for authority, they lose their respect for the rights of others.

Like a scene from Orwell’s Animal Farm, the Green-Labor-Left has become the thing it originally opposed: elitist, would-be dictators taking away from working class communities the things these battlers value:

The right to speak their mind.

To say they love their country and want Australia Day to stay.

To practice their Christianity, openly and freely.

To send their children to school without the garbage of Safe Schools, Wear-It-Purple days, ‘HeadRest’ indoctrination and the other crackpot theories making some NSW classrooms more like a Hare Krishna meeting than actual education.

And when they go to work, the chance to do their job without being bombarded by employment quotas, ‘unconscious bias’ training and a long list of unspeakable, taboo words – scary, scary stuff, like ‘guys’ and ‘mums and dads’.

The New Left are the new primitives of our time: junking the importance of evidence, of recorded history, of biological science, to pretend that all parts of our lives (especially race, gender and sexuality) can be fluid, that everything we know and feel around us is, in fact, ‘socially constructed’….

https://issuesinsights.com/2019/05/10/chinas-not-so-secret-weapon-against-america-capitalism/

The big tariff confrontation going on between Washington and Beijing, on which the markets are currently so focused, is in the larger scheme of things a sideshow. Over four decades, as China has opened itself to the world, the United States has allowed itself to become the Celestial Empire’s largest trading partner, it having surpassed Canada in 2015 with the exchange of goods well in excess of $600 billion a year.

Economically we are one flesh, divorce impermissible, with an imperious power whose long-term strategy clearly includes being able to win a war versus us. War or not, however, American decline is expected and welcomed by China’s rulers.

To which the oft-heard retort is that the free market will ultimately free the Chinese people. That underlying hope over these many years, however, is taking an awfully long time even to begin to be fulfilled.

In the meantime, the multitude of American businesses that depend on their association with China, especially those that tap into its vast ocean of cheap labor, be it directly or indirectly, will fight tooth and nail to maintain and expand U.S.-Chinese commerce. Boeing, Starbucks, Westinghouse, Apple, Ford – they’re all committed for the long haul, and not interested in withdrawing.

https://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/the-eagle-and-the-dragon-destined-for-rivalry/

A new round in the U.S.-China trade dispute has started in earnest. Last Sunday (May 5) President Donald Trump tweeted that he would raise the current 10 percent tariff on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports to 25 percent. The President doubled down on his trade war threats with China early today (May 10), just hours after last Sunday’s decision went into effect. In addition he warned that he’d continue raising tariffs on Chinese imports if there was no agreement: the Chinese “should not renegotiate deals with the U.S. at the last minute.”

Only last week, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin sounded optimistic about the latest round of bilateral negotiations, with Mnuchin telling Fox Business that the deal was “close to done.” The Chinese then suddenly revised some of the key provisions of the 150-page draft agreement. Specifically they tried to soften the language on the theft of intellectual property, financial services, forced technology transfers, and currency manipulation. Lighthizer and Mnuchin were taken aback at the extent of the changes in the draft and on Monday told reporters that Chinese backtracking had prompted Trump’s tariff order.

The current talks in Washington between China’s trade delegation and U.S. officials nevertheless will continue. Trump’s team has a strong hand, while the Chinese may have overplayed theirs. The U.S. economy grew by an annualized 3.2 percent in the first quarter of 2019, easily beating market expectations and following a 2.2 percent expansion in the previous three-month period. By contrast, on a quarter-on-quarter basis, the Chinese economy grew 1.4 percent in the first quarter, compared to a 1.5 percent expansion in the previous period. It was the weakest quarterly growth rate since the first quarter of 2016. New U.S. tariffs could further slow China’s growth rate and jeopardize President Xi Jinping ambitious “Made in China 2025” program of economic, technical and scientific development. Right now China needs an agreement far more badly than the U.S.