RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/moochers-and-looters/

There’s a socialist wave in Latin America. Mexico, Chile, Peru, Bolivia and Brazil recently elected leftists.

These politicians at least distance themselves from thugs like Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro, but all propose socialism-lite policies giving government more control over more people.

Why don’t people in Latin America learn from the mistakes of the past? Gloria Alvarez, a social media star from Guatemala, is running for president of her country to try to educate people about the damage socialism does.

People do need educating.

“It’s like Stockholm syndrome,” says Alvarez in my new video. “When you ask people, ‘Who should take care of health, education, football, arts, whatever?’ They always answer, ‘government.’ How are you going to not have corruption if you leave everything in the hands of the government?”

Alvarez’s campaign is based on social media. Her TikTok announcing her campaign garnered 1.5 million views.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19612/putin-russia-sudan

Recent documents published by the Dossier Center, an investigative project set up by Russian dissident Mikhail Khodorkovsky, demonstrate unequivocally that the Wagner Group is funded and run by Yevgeny Prigozhin, who in turn answers directly to Putin.

In recent years, the Wagner Group has been particularly busy in the Middle East and North Africa, where it has been deployed to fulfil Putin’s ambition of expanding the Kremlin’s influence in the Middle East, an objective that has been made a great deal easier by US President Joe Biden’s willingness to abandon Washington’s long-established presence in the region.

Wagner mercenaries played an active role in Russia’s military intervention in Syria during the civil war to save the regime of Bashar Assad from certain defeat, and more recently have been active in Libya and Mali as part of Putin’s drive to expand Moscow’s presence in North Africa.

Wagner’s involvement in Sudan dates back to 2017, when it was invited to help shore up Bashir’s dictatorship after he visited Putin in Moscow, during which he promised to make the country Russia’s “key to Africa”.

Since last year’s Russian invasion of Ukraine, reports have surfaced of Wagner helping to smuggle significant quantities of gold out of the country to help Putin to avoid international sanctions and fund his war effort. In return Moscow provides the RSF with sophisticated weapons.

Another vital feature of Wagner’s involvement with the RSF is that it might help Moscow to fulfil its ambitious plan to build a naval base at Port Sudan, a development that would give the Russian Navy access to one of the world’s major trade arteries.

An agreement to build a base at Port Sudan was originally agreed when Bashir was still in power but has since fallen into abeyance because of the chaos that has seized the country since the dictator’s overthrow. The RSF is now indicating that it will help revive the project if it succeeds in its attempts to seize control of the Sudanese junta, a move that would greatly enhance the potential threat Moscow poses to control of the Suez Canal and the future stability of the Middle East and Africa.

The conflict in Sudan, therefore, is not merely a struggle between rival military factions for control of the country. It represents a blatant attempt by Moscow to establish a Russian stronghold in the Red Sea, an objective that would not have been possible without Biden’s willingness to abandon Washington’s global leadership.

The dramatic upsurge of violence between warring factions in Sudan is just the latest example of the chaos being caused throughout the world by the Biden administration’s wilful abandonment of its global responsibilities.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19631/iran-workers-strike

Iranian workers… have launched a series of strikes and sit-ins to protest what they regard as “systemic exploitation.”

By the time of this writing, over 100,000 workers were on strike in 122 businesses in 35 cities, relatively small numbers yet significant for two reasons: the protests seem to be spreading and the strikes begin to affect the nerve-centers of the economy including the vital energy industry.

“What we see is the first hissings of the coming explosion.” — Jawad Zar’e, who monitors the Iranian workers’ movement.

Rahmatallah Partovi, head of the Islamic Workers’ Council claims that over 70 percent of Iranian workers live below the official “poverty line”. Alireza Mahjub, a member of the Islamic Majlis (ersatz parliament) puts the figure at 90 percent.

If you listen closely you may hear the time bomb that is ticking in work-place across Iran: tick-tack, icky-tack!

Having retreated in the battle over mandatory hijab, the Islamic Republic leadership in Tehran may be facing a potentially far more dangerous challenge to its hold on power. The challenge comes from Iranian workers who have launched a series of strikes and sit-ins to protest what they regard as “systemic exploitation.”

https://amgreatness.com/2023/05/06/an-americans-view-of-the-coronation/

The coronation of King Charles III was a stirring spectacle. I watched only a few of the more elaborate bits—some climactic moments in Westminster Abbey, some of the procession up the soldier-lined Mall in that nifty golden carriage, the King’s recognition of the troops assembled in the garden behind Buck House. 

As an Anglophile, I appreciated the pageantry. No one does it better than the Brits. They manage to make ostentation tasteful and regal display humane and welcoming. It’s impressive without being forbidding. I am an American democrat of Madisonian inclination, but I harbor fond feelings about the British monarchy. I enjoy the ceremony and heartily approve of this affirmation of “the rich tapestry of our island story.” 

Nevertheless, I came away with an impression of something bittersweet, not to say melancholy. As a performance, the coronation was thrilling. As a reality? I am not so sure. I fear there was something posthumous about the production. 

To date, Charles has acted with greater dignity and discretion than I would have predicted. His Christmas address to the nation was pitch-perfect. And he seems to be soft-pedaling some of his woke enthusiasms about “climate change” and the like. All that augurs well for the future of his reign—if “reign” is the correct word for the ceremonial bureaucracy of a man who assumed the throne at the end of his 73rd year. 

The Crown’s real estate is intact. So are the family jewels and haberdashery (the ermine fringed robes that he and Queen Camilla modeled were especially striking). 

But that may be the extent of his domain. Perhaps one should resist the temptation to peek behind the curtain. The English essayist Walter Bagehot, writing in the 1870s, was right. “Above all things our royalty is to be reverenced,” Bagehot wrote, “and if you begin to poke about it, you cannot reverence it. . . . Its mystery is its life. We must not let in daylight upon magic.”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19617/eu-appeasement-iran

The beneficiaries of EU’s increased trade with Iran are most likely the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The EU’s trade with Iran, which helps increase the Iranian regime’s revenue, is doubtless making it easier for the theocratic establishment to provide weapons to Russia…

The Iranian regime has, in fact, set up a specific route across the Caspian Sea in order to supply large quantities of munitions to Russia… “posing a growing challenge for the U.S. and its allies as they try to disrupt cooperation between Moscow and Tehran,” according to the Wall Street Journal.

The Iranian regime, probably because it knows that the European Union will not take any action, is ratcheting up its engagement and weapons exports to Russia.

The Iranian regime is simultaneously profiting from its trade with the EU and from its weapons sales to Russia, thereby empowering Putin to escalate his war against Ukraine.

In spite of the Iranian regime’s increasing involvement in the war against Ukraine, the European Union appears more than happy to continue appeasing the Iran’s ruling mullahs, which should officially be considered an accomplice to war crimes committed by Russia.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/05/ireland_is_on_the_verge_of_enacting_the_most_draconian_antispeech_law_in_the_west.html

Ireland, a country that long chafed under England’s repressive governance, is about to become very repressive itself. It’s about to put into effect a speech bill so repressive that anyone who even receives a text that runs afoul of the law could be arrested if he does not immediately delete and disavow the text. This is where the Western world, once the bastion of intellectual liberty, has ended.

The law, entitled “Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) Bill 2022,” passed through the legislature in February, with only 4 representatives out of 160 voting against it. Most in the public weren’t even aware of the bill and, if they’d thought about it, they probably would have congratulated themselves on being a nice country in which “hate” speech is barred.

It was only when an Irish conservative commentator, Keith Woods, who was reinstated on Twitter thanks to Elon Musk’s commitment to free speech, that word got out:

It’s a little hard to tell from that snippet exactly what’s going on, so let me fill in a few blanks. First, the bill has all sorts of sections and subsections for different speech offenses. They all revolve around silencing anything but positive speech about people with “protected characteristics.” Those characteristics are race, “colour,” nationalist, religion, national or ethnic origin, descent, gender, sex characteristics, sexual orientation, or disability.” “Gender,” the bill explains, includes the whole nonsensical panoply of gender identity.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19555/west-training-china-military

China is reportedly recruiting former air force pilots from the West to understand better how Western military aircraft and pilots operate. Up to 30 former UK military pilots are believed to have traveled to China since 2019 to work as instructors in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

“It’s taking Western pilots of great experience to help develop Chinese military air force tactics and capabilities. Money is a strong motivator.” — Unnamed Western official, BBC, October 28, 2022.

“It was very specific that it had to be frontline military aviators in current flying practice…. why send military pilots rather than teachers?” — Sky News, October 28, 2022.

Perhaps most incredibly, the US Army, as late as November 2020, conducted the Disaster Management Exchange (online, due to coronavirus) with China’s PLA…. Unbelievably, the November 2020 remote exercise took place just one month after President Donald Trump’s National Security Adviser, Robert O’Brien, had pronounced China to be the threat of the century….

China is reportedly recruiting former air force pilots from the West to understand better how Western military aircraft and pilots operate. Up to 30 former UK military pilots are believed to have traveled to China since 2019 to work as instructors in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19605/ukraine-iron-harvest

The media prefer to talk of mansions and opulent yachts rather than the corporate assets which continue to generate profits for the oligarch class that includes men like Alexei Miller, Igor Sechin, Roman Abramovich, Boris Rotenberg, Vladimir Potanin, Viatcheslav ‘Moshe’ Kantor, and Igor Shuvalov as well as their sons and daughters who occupy key banking and business roles too. All of these have been sanctioned and some of their assets frozen.

Serious consideration should be given to finding a way to hold the beneficiaries of Putin’s largesse even more accountable, if possible, and direct their assets to rectifying the damage that their patron-in-chief has caused. It is likely that tens of billions of US dollars of Putin’s oligarchs’ assets have already been frozen under international sanctions. This means Russia cannot use them, but as things stand, they cannot be confiscated and put to work to help Ukraine re-build, much as there is the desire in the US, UK and EU to do so.

A series of bills has already been introduced in the US Congress towards this aim, but they would all appear to fall foul of domestic laws as well as international investment laws. What is now needed therefore is a coordinated legislative effort in Washington, London and like-minded capitals to permanently deprive Russia of these funds and use them to help offset the massive reconstruction bills that will otherwise fall entirely to US, British and European taxpayers.

The World Bank estimates an overall reconstruction bill for Ukraine at $349 billion, an eye-watering sum that is rising by the week. Ukrainian government sources put it at more like $700 billion. Somehow this has all got to be paid for, and it’s not going to come from Ukraine, whose economy is in tatters after months of fighting for its very survival. The chances of getting Russia to cough up are close to zero, whatever the talk of war crimes trials and reparations.

Meanwhile, sanctioned Russian oligarchs, who themselves bear considerable responsibility for Putin’s aggression, simply alter the ownership of their corporations to avoid penalties, often with their vast fortunes residing in Western banks and property empires. It is time for their wealth to come under greater scrutiny as the world figures out how to put Ukraine back together when the war eventually comes to an end.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19593/armenian-genocide-remembrance

The evidence is overwhelming.

“Each girl had been nailed alive upon her cross, spikes through her feet and hands…” — Aurora Mardiganian, Ravished Armenia.

Often overlooked… is that this was less a genocide of Armenians and more a genocide of Christians. Thus the opening sentence of U.S. House Resolution 296, which passed on the hundredth anniversary of the genocide (2019), correctly mentions “the campaign of genocide against Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Syriacs, Arameans, Maronites, and other Christians.”

Christianity is what all of those otherwise diverse peoples had in common, and therefore it — not nationality, ethnicity, territory, or grievances — was the ultimate determining factor concerning who the Turks would and would not “purge.”

“Christians were considered infidels (kafir). The call to Jihad… was part of the plan.” — Joseph Yacoub, author of Year of the Sword: The Assyrian Christian Genocide

An eyewitness recalled that… “outrages” [were] committed against “even children”….

“The opportunity [World War I] presented itself for clearing Turkish soil of a Christian race.” — Winston Churchill.

“Turkey is taking advantage of the war in order to thoroughly liquidate its internal foes, i.e., the indigenous Christians, without being thereby disturbed by foreign intervention…. The question is settled. There are no more Armenians.” — Talaat Pasha, the de facto leader of the Ottoman Empire during the genocide, June 1915.

Turkey, in 2020, sent sharia-enforcing “jihadist groups,” from Syria and Libya…. These Muslim groups committed numerous atrocities. These included raping an Armenian female soldier and mother of three, before hacking off all four of her limbs, gouging her eyes, and sticking one of her severed fingers inside her private parts. — Greek City Times, September 25, 2020.

Not only has it gone unpunished; NATO ally Turkey has resumed the genocide against the very descendants of those whom the Turks nearly exterminated over a century ago — namely Armenians and Assyrians.

More recently, in late 2022, Turkey launched thousands of attacks — air, mortar, drone, artillery, etc.—several miles deep into Syria’s northern border. This is, of course, where most of the religious minorities live — Christians, Yazidis, and Kurds, who a few years earlier experienced a genocide at the hands of the Islamic State (“ISIS”).

“These military attacks by Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s regime are part of a wider Turkish policy of annihilation of the Kurdish and Assyrian [Christian] people in northern Syria and Iraq. Turkey has committed war crimes and crimes against humanity, including bombing, shelling, abduction, torture, and extrajudicial killings. The attacks are part of Turkey’s genocidal policies towards Kurds, Christians, and Ezidis.” — Genocide Watch, December 7, 2022.

“This genocide is a pattern we see, and it’s certainly nothing new…. For those who say ‘Not on our watch!’ or ‘Never again!’— here it is, happening again!” — Charmaine Hedding, president of the US-based Shai Fund, webinar on Turkey’s genocidal assault on Christians in Syria, rumble.com, December 15, 2022.