RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.news24.com/Africa/Zimbabwe/in-zimbabwes-crisis-we-cannot-talk-of-christmas-anymore-20181210

Dressed as Father Christmas, a man dozes off while sitting in a supermarket in Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare. No one seems to care.

The holiday mood is not catching on in a country where a currency crisis has forced people to risk jail time to buy basics such as medicine and food. Many Zimbabweans navigate from one currency to another, often tapping the black market, while the government issues salaries in forms of payment it later refuses to accept.

The frustration has sparked a new round of anti-government sentiment in a country that once saw July’s presidential election, the first without longtime leader Robert Mugabe, as a chance to start over. New President Emmerson Mnangagwa declared the country “open for business.” But citizens are now asking: How?

This is Zimbabwe’s most severe economic meltdown since a decade ago, when the local currency was abandoned due to hyperinflation that reached more than 1 billion percent. Since then, daily transactions have been dominated by the US dollar.

But a dollar shortage has pushed most people to use a government-issued surrogate currency called bond notes, as well as mobile money, which are funds electronically deposited into bank accounts. Both are devaluing quickly against the dollar on the black market.

‘The black market is my only option’

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2018/12/melbournes-petite-shy-honours-student-terrorist/

Why did Australian authorities allow Momena Shoma into the country after Turkey, and perhaps Tunisia and the United States as well, rejected her visa application? They did, alas, and the international student’s host almost paid with his life when ‘sudden jihadi syndrome’ saw her plunge a knife into his throat.

A petite, pretty twenty-four-year-old Bangladeshi named Momena Shoma (left) arrived in Melbourne on February 1, 2018, to study linguistics on an excellence scholarship at La Trobe University. Describing herself as “an introvert and very shy in nature”, she spoke of an ambition to become a university instructor. Coming from an affluent and secular Dhaka family which considered her “brilliant”, Momena had been an A student at some of the capital’s elite English-language educational institutions: Loreto School, Mastermind School and North South University (NSU). She graduated from NSU with an honours degree in English language and literature in 2016, then enrolled for a master’s degree at NSU before switching to La Trobe.

Like many newly-arrived foreign students, Momena turned to the Australian Homestay Network (AHN), “Australia’s largest and leading homestay provider”, to find a family with which to board. She quickly settled in a home in Bundoora, near the university.

What could be more innocent? Anyone worrying about her being dangerous because of her Muslim faith would have been called out for racism, chauvinism, xenophobia, bigotry and (that most dreadful of accusations) “Islamophobia”. That she wore a burka (the black full-body Islamic covering) only made such suspicions the more heinous.

But, as Momena took a twenty-five-centimetre kitchen knife to her Bundoora room and repeatedly stabbed her bed, she signalled the danger to come. In the words of a magistrate, “She did the practice run on the mattress with the first family that hosted her and they felt intimidated enough to go to [AHN], saying, ‘We’re scared, we don’t want her to continue living with us’.” Out she went, facing homelessness.

Responding to her urgent need for accommodation, the Singaravelu family—husband and nightshift nurse Roger (fifty-six), wife Maha (forty-five) and daughter Shayla (five)—welcomed Momena into their four-bedroom house in the suburb of Mill Park on February 7 for a few days until she found more permanent lodgings. Maha explained her motive in accepting Momena: “I felt for her, being in a foreign country. I put myself in her shoes and her parents’ shoes.”

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/12/as_paris_burns_50000_in_rome_rally_in_support_of_populist_government_defying_eu_mandarins.html

Saturday saw a new tale of two cities. Paris, in the throes of a popular revolt against the globalist, warmist, high-tax regime of Emmanuel Macron, was exploding in another weekend of violence that saw “1,385 arrests, setting a record for a single day in postwar France.” Meanwhile, in Rome, a buoyant crowd of at least 50,000 celebrated six months of power for the populist coalition that won power in Italy.

CNN reports:

Far-right Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini attacked same-sex unions and promised to put “Italians first” during a rally in Rome on Saturday, as his government remained locked in deadlock with the EU over its proposed budget.

The rally was held to celebrate the success of Salvini’s Northern League party [sic, see below –D.B.] in this year’s general election, which saw the populist and euroskeptic party enter into a coalition with the anti-establishment Five Star Movement.

Salvini told about 50,000 supporters in Piazza del Popolo that the current government would last for five years. But the event had the markings of a campaign rally throughout, with the Interior Minister telling the crowd that “United we will win” as he finished his speech.

Italian journalist Alessandra Bocchi noted another contrast – in the way media treated the two men:

Salvini and his populist coalition are facing a looming EU veto of Italy’s proposed budget and are taking an explicitly nationalist position, implicitly endorsing Trump’s nationalism that was rebuked by Macron.

Reuters notes that Salvini’s popularity is surging based on promises kept:

Since taking office, Salvini has made good on promises to slow drastically the arrival of mainly African migrants into Italy, and has seen support for the League surge to around 34 percent [double its vote in the election –T.L.], making it the largest party in Italy.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13400/un-approves-terror

Hamas and the other Palestinian terrorist groups have interpreted the failure of the US resolution as an internationally sanctioned license to continue killing Jews.

What Hamas is telling the UN and the rest of the world is: “Now that you have refused to brand us terrorists, we have the right to launch all forms of terrorist attacks and kill as many Jews as possible.” Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders are, in fact, threatening not only to continue, but also to step up, their terrorist attacks on Israel.

When Hamas and its supporters celebrate, the few Palestinians who are described as moderates and pragmatists and who are opposed to violence and terrorism, will have to hide.

Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah have boasted that what happened at the UN was a “slap in the face of the US and Israel.” In fact, what happened at the UN is a severe blow to the “moderates” among the Palestinians and to any chances of reaching a peaceful solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Now that the UN has legitimized Palestinian terrorism, no Palestinian leader will be able to return to the negotiating table with Israel. Thus, with this move, the UN has expertly torpedoed even the remotest possibility of peace talks.

The Palestinian terrorist group Hamas could not have wished for a better birthday gift than the one with which the United Nations General Assembly presented it last week.

In a few days, Hamas will hold a massive celebration in the Gaza Strip to mark its 31st anniversary. Hamas leaders are expected to pass on to their supporters the nice gift the terrorist group has just received from the UN — a gift that enables them to continue launching rockets at Israel and planning how to kill as many Jews as possible on the way to eliminating Israel and replacing it with an Islamic state.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13399/french-people-screwed

Macron makes no secret of his wish to be seen as a global leader for environmental reform. He forgets that back at home, among the people who elected him, fuel prices really matter.

There are images online of police removing their helmets and firefighters turning their backs on political authority to show their support for the protestors.

For the first time in his presidency, Macron is in trouble and Europe and America are looking on.

On December 4, French Prime Minister Édouard Phillipe told deputies of the ruling party, “La République en Marche”, that a proposed fuel tax rise, which had led to the largest protests France has seen in decades, would be suspended.

The protesters, called Gilets-Jaunes — “Yellow Vests,” because of the vests drivers are obliged by the government to carry in their vehicles in the event of a roadside breakdown — say that the fuel tax was the last straw from a president who took office with a promise to help the economically left-behind but instead has favoured the rich.

Even by French standards, the protests of the “Yellow Vests” during the weekend of December 1 were startling. Burning cars and vast plumes of grey smoke seemed to engulf the Arc De Triomphe as if Paris were at war. Comparisons were drawn with the Bread Wars of the 17th Century and the spirit of the Revolution of the 18th Century.

For more than two weeks, the “Yellow Vests” disrupted France. They paralyzed highways and forced roads to close — causing shortages across the country – and blocked fuel stations from Lille in the North to Marseilles in the South.

During protests in France’s capital, Paris, the “Yellow Vests” were soon joined by a more violent element, who began torching cars, smashing windows and looting stores. 133 were injured, 412 were arrested and more than 10,000 tear gas and stun grenades were fired.

One elderly lady was killed when she was struck by a stray grenade as she tried to shutter her windows against the melee.

There was talk of imposing a State of Emergency.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/12/your_time_is_up_white_people_south_african_parliament_targets_next_march_for_land_expropriation.html

The South African parliament approved a motion that would set up an ad-hoc committee to recommend procedures on how land expropriation without compensation would work. Earlier, the parliament had approved the constitutional changes that would give the government power to take land from white farmers without paying for it.

IOL:

The motion was adopted with 183 votes in favour and 77 against. There were no abstentions.

Opposition parties had objected vehemently, with the Freedom Front Plus’s Anton Alberts reiterating the party’s threat that land expropriation would lead to instability.

“When the blood flows it will be on your hands,” Alberts said in the direction of the ANC benches.

The Congress of the People’s Deirdre Carter urged voters to go to the polls to “stop the ANC, stop the EFF, the only way you can do it”.

Themba Godi, from the African People’s Convention, backed the ANC and Economic Freedom Fighters’ support for the motion and an amendment, saying those who opposed land reform were, in fact, supporting the oppression of African people.

“Land must be nationalised and socialised for the benefit of the people, especially the working class and women …. those who oppose want the perpetuation of wrongs of past.”

Tell me if you think this expropriation scheme is going to go peacefully:

Star:

But there were heated scenes in the House when politicians clashed over the plans.

According to local reports, Economic Freedom Fighters MP Hlengiwe Mkhaliphi argued land grabs must go ahead as she declared: “Your time is up, white people”.

This came as the IFP MP Mkhuleko Hlengwa said the plans undermine South Africa’s position as a democratic state.

According to the Daily Maverick, he said: “To achieve real and effective land reform is (possible) under the existing Constitution, not your (ANC) populist agenda.

“You should be ashamed of yourself.”

https://pjmedia.com/trending/belgiums-government-in-crisis-over-un-migration-pact/

The government of Belgium Prime Minister Charles Michel was rocked by the withdrawal of a major coalition partner over Michel’s intent to sign the UN migration pact.

The pact was negotiated by 180 countries and is due to be signed on Monday. But at least six EU countries will refuse to sign the accord, which was given the green light last summer.

What happened in the interim is a classic case of political leaders getting out too far in front of the people. While the nations signed off on the pact, many have been having second thoughts as the rise of nationalist parties has put a damper on the signing ceremony.

In Belgium, Michel faced a revolt by the nationalist N-VA, the largest party in parliament. When Michel refused to accede to their demand he not sign the treaty, N-VA cabinet ministers quit. Michel says he will continue governing with a minority, but his power will be severely curtailed.

Reuters:

Michel had secured a large parliamentary majority last week in favour of maintaining Belgium’s support of the United Nations text, which since it was agreed by all U.N. states bar the United States in July has run into criticism from European politicians who say it could increase immigration to Europe.

The N-VA faces electoral losses in its Dutch-speaking region to the harder-right, anti-immigration Vlaams Belang. Its leader Bart De Wever, the mayor of Belgium’s second city Antwerp, had issued Michel an ultimatum that it would quit the government if he signed the non-binding U.N. declaration.

A crisis cabinet meeting on Saturday night was cut short when two N-VA ministers, Interior Minister Jan Jambon and Migration Minister Theo Francken, walked out.

Michel said he would replace N-VA ministers with lower-ranked state secretaries and maintain a minority coalition involving his French-speaking liberal MR and two Flemish parties, the centre-right CD&V and Open VLD.

At least six EU states — mostly in formerly Communist eastern Europe — have already shunned the accord to regulate the treatment of migrants worldwide, a sign of how the bloc has turned increasingly restrictive on accepting refugees and migrants alike since a 2015 spike in arrivals.

Why all this trouble over a non-binding, toothless pact?

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13398/un-global-compact-withdrawal

The EU has been paying particularly North African governments for years to keep migrants away from the European continent. The effort seems to have yielded few results in terms of stopping migration to Europe.

The UN Global Compact stipulates that, “media outlets that systematically promote intolerance, xenophobia, racism and other forms of discrimination towards migrants” should not receive “public funding or material support.”

Already, it is clear what this stipulation means in practice. The UN recently banned the Canadian outlet Rebel Media from attending the Conference for the Adoption of the UN Global Migration Compact. When Rebel Media asked for an explanation, they were told that the UN, “reserves the right to deny or withdraw accreditation of journalists from media organizations whose activities run counter to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations, or who abuse the privileges so extended or put the accreditation to improper use or act in a way not consistent with the principles of the Organization. The decisions are final”.

This form of totalitarian behavior on the part of the UN should encourage more states that still value democracy, immediately to back out of the Compact.

The ongoing and bitter dispute between the EU and its Eastern European member states — countries such as Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic — that have refused to take in migrants as part of the EU’s quota system, might be approaching some sort of compromise. In an internal document circulated to EU interior ministers in Brussels in early December, Reuters reported, EU member states that refuse to host migrants in their countries could be exempted from doing so, if instead they show “alternative measures of solidarity.” According to diplomats, these “alternative measures” are apparently EU code for “paying into the EU budget or paying toward development projects in Africa”.

“The document,” Reuters noted, “said the European Union would need a proper mechanism to avoid a situation in which all EU governments opted to pay their way out of any hosting responsibilities and would set an eight-year period for any arrangements”.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13397/united-nations-chicanery

The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration — which seeks to criminalize criticism of migration — is nothing more or less than a dangerous effort to weaken national borders, to normalize mass migration, to blur the line between legal and illegal immigration, and to bolster the idea that people claiming to be refugees enjoy a panoply of rights in countries where they have never before set foot.

One thing about the agreement, in any event, is irrefutable: almost nobody in the Western world has been clamoring for this. It is, quite simply, a project of the globalist elites. It is a UN power-grab.

It is something else, too: it is an effort to enhance the clout of the UN’s largest and most influential power bloc — namely, the Arab and Muslim states. Briefly put, whatever this deal is or is not, it is definitely not good news for the West, for freedom, or for national identity and security.

In Britain, the rage over Muslim rape gangs and Theresa May’s Brexit foul-up is spreading. In Germany, anger about Merkel’s recklessly transformative refugee policies is mounting. In France, the growing cost of immigrant freeloaders to taxpayers has sparked the most sensational public demonstrations since 1968. In Italy and Austria, opponents of the Islamization of Europe now hold the reins of power. Elsewhere in Western Europe, more and more citizens are standing up to their masters’ open-borders dhimmitude.

Yet much of this principled and patriotic resistance may turn out to be for naught, thanks to the so-called Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, which is scheduled to be signed by representatives of the UN member states at a December 10-11 conference. Supporters of the compact are quick to reassure its critics that it is not a binding treaty and that it reaffirms the concept of national sovereignty. Nevertheless, when you come right down to it, it is nothing more or less than a dangerous effort to weaken national borders, to normalize mass migration, to blur the line between legal and illegal immigration, and to bolster the idea that people claiming to be refugees enjoy a panoply of rights in countries where they have never before set foot.

http://standpointmag.co.uk/features-december-2018-michael-pinto-duschinsky-munkacs-roman-vishniac-mukachevo

What was it really like to live in a traditional Jewish community in Eastern Europe before it was obliterated by the Nazis? The question is important because the physical destruction of six million Jews was also a cultural catastrophe. The danger is that our understanding will consist of noble caricatures. This essay was stimulated by the contrast between the highly influential scenes recorded in 1930s Munkacs by Roman Vishniac and family snapshots from the same period.

In the process of commissioning photographs which would help to raise funds for impoverished Jews in 1930s Europe, the New York based “Joint” — the American Joint Distribution Committee — produced images which were classic works of art as well as invaluable documents showing the predicament of Jewish communities already suffering from economic deprivation and increasingly severe anti-Semitism.

Some of the most striking pictures by Vishniac, the Moscow-born American photographer despatched by the Joint, were of pious, poverty-striken, long-bearded Hasidim in mud-laden Carpatho-Ruthenian villages and in towns such as Munkacs, which the Vishniac version implies was the essence of backwardness.

At the time Vishniac took his photographs in the late 1930s, Munkacs (Mukachevo in Slavic languages) was almost half Jewish. Following the Hungarian takeover of the town in 1938 and the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, the town’s Jewish refugees from Poland were driven into Soviet territory which the advancing Nazi forces soon overran. Most of the expellees were murdered within weeks in one of the first mass shootings of the Holocaust, carried out in Kamenets-Podolski by Hitler’s Einsatzgruppen. Apart from this tragedy, the fact that Hungary was an ally of Hitler at least protected Hungarian Jewry from the extreme suffering across the border in Slovakia and in Poland. Anti-Semitic economic measures and the conscription of Jewish males into labour battalions in lieu of military service functioned in Hungary as substitutes for mass murder.

As Germany neared defeat in 1944, supposedly-secret talks between the Allies and Hungarian officials to arrange for Hungary to switch sides were conducted so incompetently that Nazi agents were able to warn Hitler. He then sent the SS and Adolf Eichmann into Hungary with a mission to prevent Hungary’s desertion and to take the opportunity to deport its Jews to Auschwitz.

Nazi forces entered Hungary on March 19, 1944. Within weeks, Jews in most places, apart from Budapest, which was left to the last, were forced into makeshift ghettoes. The order to Jews in Munkacs to leave their homes for the few streets which were to form the ghetto came with a roll of drums on April 15, the last day of Passover. Jews from neighbouring villages were crowded separately into Jewish-owned brickyards on the outskirts of town. The Munkacs ghetto existed briefly. The first deportation train left on May 14, the last on May 24. According to notes left by my mother before she died last year, I was smuggled out of the Munkacs ghetto on May 5 at less than a year of age; she was smuggled out two weeks later. If the date she gives is correct, the deportations were already in full swing. Had the Christian woman recruited to visit the ghetto carrying false papers arrived a week later, it would have been too late to save her. Her mother was included in the final transport from the town, survived slave labour in Auschwitz and further camps but died a year and a half after her release. My mother never saw her again. Her father and grandfather were gassed on arrival in Auschwitz on May 26. We know that my mother’s uncle survived the selection that day since someone later reported meeting him in the camp. But he too died — where and when is unknown — as did a mass of other relatives.