RUTHFULLY YOURS

A Steel tariff destroys more jobs in cars, aviation, construction and machine-making than it saves in steel, while free trade deals will help boost growth
The Institute of Free Trade will aim to use Brexit to cut prices, boost growth, and help world trade
AS Britain got ready to join the EEC in 1973, one of the biggest arguments in the build up was over whether food prices would go up.

They did — by as much as 40 per cent.

Britain was no longer free to buy on world markets — Canadian wheat, Argentine beef, New Zealand lamb.

Instead, we had to get much of what we wanted from expensive Continental producers. There have been some reforms to the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy since then but, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, it still adds 17 per cent to our grocery bills.

Pricey food is bad for everyone. It means we have to spend more on the basics, so have less for other things. That makes the whole economy suffer.

But it is especially bad for people on low incomes, because food bills are a higher proportion of their monthly budget.

On Tuesday, alongside Boris Johnson and Liam Fox, I’ll be launching the Institute for Free Trade, which aims to use Brexit to cut prices, boost growth and help world trade. Outside the EU, we can sign deals with Australia, China, India, the US — helping our own folk and theirs.

Until recently, it went without saying that free trade was good for ordinary people. Protectionism was seen for what it was — a way to transfer money from the poor to the rich.

Outside the EU we can sign deals with Australia, China, India and the US

Nowadays, though, free trade is often seen as exploitative.

Well-meaning youngsters protest against trade deals, imagining they are standing up for poor countries against big business.

In fact they are doing the opposite.

Nothing has done more to reduce global poverty than the spread of markets.

This is an astonishing story of corruption at a high level…..rsk

The article you are reading originally appeared in German in issue 40/2017 (September 30th, 2017) of DER SPIEGEL.

Luis Moreno Ocampo hunted the world’s worst war criminals and brought them to trial at the International Criminal Court. But internal documents show that he allowed himself to be exploited by a Libyan to protect him from investigation and that he took money from the billionaire.

Luis Moreno Ocampo was wearing a shiny black academic gown when he took the oath as the first chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court at the Peace Palace in The Hague. He looked attractive, determined and sophisticated, like George Clooney playing the role of a law professor, when he raised his hand on June 16, 2003, solemnly swearing “to perform my duties in an honorable fashion and never to abuse my power as chief prosecutor.”

The genocide in Rwanda and the massacre in Srebrenica had highlighted the need for a permanent international judiciary, and prompted the international community to approve the establishment of the International Criminal Court (ICC). The aim was to ensure that no war criminal would feel safe anymore, and to provide justice for the victims of bloody conflicts. Then United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan described the ICC as a “giant step forward in the march towards universal human rights.” This was the hope Ocampo was to embody.

The Argentine lawyer seemed the perfect choice. As a public prosecutor in the 1980s, he had made a name for himself in trials against commanders in the former military junta. He later specialized in human rights cases and fighting corruption. It was his resume that left no doubt that Ocampo possessed the necessary stature to fulfill the role of the world’s conscience.

It was the role of his life. During his nine-year term as chief prosecutor in The Hague, he ran an office with 300 employees whose job was to hunt down the world’s worst villains. Ocampo conducted investigations in war zones, issued arrest warrants against heads of government, and spoke with business leaders, politicians and film stars like Sean Penn and Angelina Jolie, who all wanted to be associated with him. He was often accompanied on his trips by documentary filmmakers. The chief prosecutor was a person who fascinated others, a man who seemed to personify the longing for justice and morality.

The table is now littered with the crumbled remains of the paper coaster, as Ocampo nervously taps his knees together. He confirms that he signed the $3-million contract with Tatanaki. However, he says, he was paid no more than the $750,000 and only worked with Tatanaki for one year, or “just three months basically.” He is unwilling to reveal why the assignment ended.

Unwilling To Recognize the Damage

Ocampo doesn’t understand what it is that he has supposedly done wrong. He says that he warned Tatanaki about Haftar, telling him to avoid being too closely associated with the general, “or else you could be indicted.” At the end of the conversation, he says: “What I did was not just legal, but also right. Helping Tatanaki was a good idea.”

Three days after the interview took place, DER SPIEGEL received a letter from Ocampo’s attorney. He wrote that his client attaches great importance to the statement that his consulting services for Tatanaki were “unconnected to the work he undertook as ICC presecutor in 2011.”

In London, Ocampo’s longtime employee is sitting next to him, smiling occasionally when the conversation turns to Justice First. But more than two years ago, on June 4, 2015, she wrote in an email to Ocampo, on the subject of Tatanaki: “He is seen as backing one political side, backing Haftar and backing violence as a solution to the political situation. No one seems to trust him because he is so rich and was close as well to Gaddafi, even if it was to protect his business interests. There are some strange things on the TV channel. And now everyone thinks that Ocampo has taken a side in the Libya conflict, and by extension, the ICC.”

Long touted as a beacon of Muslim tolerance and moderation, Indonesia joined other repressive Muslim nations in May when it sentenced the Christian governor of Jakarta, known as “Ahok,” to a two-year prison term on the charge that he committed “blasphemy” against Islam.

The blasphemy accusation is based on a video that Ahok made, in which he told voters that they were being deceived if they believed that Koran 5:51, as his opposition said, requires Muslims not to vote for a non-Muslim when there are Muslim candidates available. The Koran passage states: “O you who have believed, do not take the Jews and the Christians as allies. They are allies of one another. And whoever is an ally to them among you — then indeed, he is one of them.”

“Morocco’s 2011 constitution allows for freedom of religion. The authorities claim to practice only a moderate form of Islam that leaves room for religious tolerance. Yet, in reality, Moroccan Christians still suffer from persecution.” Mustafa said: “I was shunned at work. My children were bullied at school.”

One month after Islamic militants bombed two Egyptian churches during Palm Sunday and killed nearly 50 people in April 2017, several SUVs, on May 26, stopped two buses transporting dozens of Christians to the ancient Coptic Monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor in the desert south of Cairo. According to initial reports, approximately ten Islamic militants, heavily armed and dressed in military fatigues, “demanded that the passengers recite the Muslim profession of faith” — which is tantamount to converting to Islam. When they refused, the jihadis opened fire on them, killing 29 Christians, at least ten of whom were young children. Two girls were aged 2 and 4. Also killed was Mohsen Morkous, an American citizen described as “a simple man” whom “everyone loved,” his two sons, and his two grandsons.

According to eyewitness accounts, the terrorists ordered the passengers to exit the bus in groups:

“As each pilgrim came off the bus they were asked to renounce their Christian faith and profess belief in Islam, but all of them—even the children—refused. Each was killed in cold blood with a gunshot to the head or the throat.

“By the time they killed half of the people, the terrorists saw cars coming in the distance and we think that that is what saved the rest,” said one source. “They did not have time to kill them all. They just shot at them randomly and then fled.”

According to another report:

“The dead and dying lay in the desert sand amid Islamic leaflets left by the assailants extoling the virtues of fasting during Ramadan and forgiveness granted to those who abstain from eating during the Islamic ritual. Ramadan … is often seen as the worst time for persecution of Christians who live in the Middle East.”

A video of the immediate aftermath “showed at least four or five bodies of adult men lying on the desert sand next to the bus; women and other men screamed and cried as they stood or squatted next to the bodies.” According to a man who spoke to hospitalized relatives, “authorities took somewhere from two to three hours to arrive at the scene.” The man “questioned whether his uncle and others might have lived had the response been quicker.”

The attack occurred in the middle of a three-month state of emergency that began 47 days earlier, on Sunday, April 9, when twin attacks on Coptic Christian churches left some 49 Christians slaughtered. The December before that, 29 other Christians were killed during another set of twin attacks on churches. Both before and after the monastery attack, dozens of Christians, mostly in Sinai, but some in Egypt proper, were killed in cold blood, often decapitated or burned alive. According to a May 9 report, “A [Christian] father and his two sons were recently kidnapped by ISIS and their bodies were finally found over the weekend.”

Peace is not possible in the Middle East because values and goals other than peace are more important to Middle Easterners. Most important to Middle Easterners are loyalty to kin, clan, and cult, and the honour that is won by such loyalty.

There was no group and no loyalty above the tribe or tribal confederation until the rise of Islam. With Islam, a new, higher, more encompassing level of loyalty was defined. All people were divided between Muslims and infidels, and the world was divided between the Dar al-Islam, the land of believers and peace, and Dar al-harb, the land of unbelievers and war. Following the tribal ideology of loyalty, Muslims should unite against infidels, and would receive not only honour, but heavenly rewards.

Honour is gained in victory. Losing is regarded as deeply humiliating. Only the prospects of a future victory and the regaining of honour drives people forward. An example is the Arab-Israel conflict, in the course of which the despised Jews repeatedly defeated the armies of Arab states. This was not so much a material disaster for the Arabs, as it was a cultural one in which honor was lost. The only way to regain honor is to defeat and destroy Israel, the explicit goal of the Palestinians: “from the [Jordan] river to the [Mediterranean] sea.” This why no agreement over land or boundaries will bring peace: peace does not restore honor.

We in the West, unlike Middle Easterners, love “victims.” But what if Middle Easterners are victims of the limitations and shortcomings of their own culture?

Living as an anthropologist in a herding camp of the Yarahmadzai tribe of nomadic pastoralists in the deserts of Iranian Baluchistan clarified some of the inhibitions to peace in the Middle East. What one sees is strong, kin-based, group loyalty defense and solidarity, and the political opposition of lineages, whether large or small.[1] This raised the question how unity and peace could arrive in a system based on opposition.

Peace is not possible in the Middle East because values and goals other than peace are more important to Middle Easterners. Most important to Middle Easterners are loyalty to kin, clan, and cult, and the honour which is won by such loyalty. These are the cultural imperatives, the primary values, held and celebrated. When conflict arises and conflict-parties form based on loyal allegiance, the conflict is regarded as appropriate and proper.

The results of absolute commitment to kin and cult groups, and the structural opposition to all others, can be seen throughout Middle Eastern history, including contemporary events, where conflict has been rife. Turks, Arabs and Iranians have launched military campaigns to suppress Kurds. Meanwhile, Christians, Yazidis, Baha’is and Jews, among others, have been, and continue to be ethnically cleansed. Arabs and Persians, and Sunnis and Shiites, each try to gain power over the other in a competition that has been one of the main underlying factors of the Iraq-Iran war, the Saddam Hussein regime, and the current catastrophe in Syria. Turks invaded Greek Orthodox Cyprus in 1974 and have occupied it since. Multiple Muslim states have invaded the minuscule Jewish state of Israel three times, and Palestinians daily celebrate the murder of Jews.

Some Middle Easterners, and some in the West, prefer to attribute the problems of the Middle East to outsiders, such as Western imperialists, but it seems odd to suggest that the local inhabitants have no agency and no responsibility for their activities in this disastrous region, high not only in conflict and brutality, but low by all world standards in human development.

If one looks to local conditions to understand local conflicts, the first thing to understand is that Arab culture, through the ages and at the present time, has been built on the foundation of Bedouin tribal culture. Most of the population of northern Arabia at the time of the emergence of Islam was Bedouin, and during the period of rapid expansion following the adoption of Islam, the Arab Muslim army consisted of Bedouin tribal units. The Bedouin, nomadic and pastoral for the most part, were formed into tribes, which are regional defense and security groups.[2]

Bedouin tribes were organized by basing groups on descent through the male line. Close relatives in conflict activated only small groups, while distant relatives in conflict activated large groups. If, for example, members of cousin groups were in conflict, no one else was involved. But if members of tribal sections were in conflict, all cousins and larger groups in a tribal section would unite in opposition to the other tribal section. So, what group a tribesmen thought himself a member of was circumstantial, depending on who was involved in a conflict.

Relations between descent groups were always oppositional in principle, with tribes as a whole seeing themselves in opposition to other tribes. The main structural relation between groups at the same genealogical and demographic level could be said to be balanced opposition. The strongest political norm among tribesmen was loyalty to, and active support of, one’s kin group, small or large. One must always support closer kin against more distant kin. Loyalty was rewarded with honour. Not supporting your kin was dishonourable. The systemic result was often a stand-off, the threat of full scale conflict with another group of the same size and determination acting as deterrence against frivolous adventures. That there were not more conflicts than the many making up tribal history, is due to that deterrence.

WASHINGTON – The Islamic Republic of Iran is “practically” cheating on its nuclear deal in plain sight, a defense advisor told Congress on Thursday, citing evidence from satellite imagery.

“Iran has actually practically told us that they’re cheating on the Iran nuclear deal,” Peter Vincent Pry, executive director for the EMP Task Force on National and Homeland Security, a Congressional Advisory Board, said Thursday at a hearing of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Oversight and Management Efficiency. “They have told us in their military doctrine, black-and-white, that they plan to cheat on agreements in order to get nuclear weapons.”

Pry’s comments came the same day that President Trump announced that he will not certify the Iran deal this month, which starts the clock for a 60-day window for Congress to decide whether to reapply sanctions that the Obama administration lifted under the deal.

Iran agreed to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in 2015, with promises to significantly curb operations at the country’s nuclear facilities in return for the lifting of international oil and banking sanctions. Some experts have said that Iran has denied international nuclear inspectors access to military installations.

Pry pointed to unclassified satellite imagery showing an Iranian military base with four high-energy power lines carrying about 750,000 volts each running underground into a facility to which the International Atomic Energy Agency has no access.

Pry suggested that Iran is using those high-voltage lines to power uranium centrifuges that have not been declared to the international community. He compared it to the Soviet Union’s underground nuclear reactor at Krasnoyarsk-26, which was used to clandestinely make plutonium and uranium for nuclear weapons to skirt Cold War arms deals.

“Something is going on in one of those underground military facilities (in Iran),” Pry said. “We have a long history of the bad guys cheating on these treaties, and at least half the problem is our own unwillingness to acknowledge that because there are interests in this town that are very much in favor of not wanting to face the reality that arms control doesn’t work.”

He compared the situation to the people surrounding UK Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain prior to World War II, who didn’t want to acknowledge that the Nazis and the Japanese were cheating on the Washington Naval Treaty.

In his opening remarks, Pry also warned of a separate issue that he has been sounding the alarm about for nearly a decade: North Korea staging an electromagnetic pulse attack that he believes could shut down the U.S. power grid for an “indefinite period leading to the death within a year of up to 90 percent of all Americans.”

As described by Pry, an EMP attack from North Korea would not require an accurate missile guidance system, as the target area could have a radius of hundreds of thousands of kilometers. An EMP attack would be possible, he testified, by launching a short-range missile off a freighter or a submarine. A balloon-lofted warhead detonated at 30 kilometers in altitude, he continued, could “black out” the Eastern Electric Power Grid, which generates about 75 percent of U.S. electricity.

Pry cited claims made in 2016 by Ambassador Henry Cooper, former director of the U.S. Strategic Defense Initiative, who wrote that North Korea “doesn’t need an ICBM to create this existential threat. It could use its demonstrated satellite launcher to carry a nuclear weapon over the South Polar region and detonate it … over the United States to create a high-altitude electromagnetic pulse.” CONTINUE AT SITE

Her name is Tatyana Goldman Alexander, she is Jewish and she is serving as one of seven women, among a total of 39 Supreme Court judges, on the Supreme Court bench of the majority Moslem country, Azerbaijan.http://newsblaze.com/world/eurasia/azerbaijans-supreme-court-judge-a-woman-in-a-moslem-country_87639/

This is my second meeting with Madam Tatyana, an extremely friendly and hospitable lady, open to a heart-to-heart chat. I especially requested an interview with the Lady Judge because it is rare to see a woman serving in such a high position when Moslem countries are known for their oppression of women. And a Jewish woman on top of it? That is the ultimate. There are no Jews living in Moslem countries. But Azerbaijan, though a majority Moslem country, is a total different story, a story I wanted to tell.

Madam Tatyana’s roots are in the Ukraine. She comes from a long line of professionals, lawyers, doctors, architects.

Her mother’s grandfather was a lawyer. He was one of only five Jewish students in the entire Russian empire who were accepted to study at St. Pietersburg University. However, he could not get a job unless he changed his religion, gave up being a Jew.

Her father’s family, name Gusman, she thinks were originally expelled from Spain, moved to Baku from Ukraine in the early years of 20th century; her mother’s family moved to Baku from Ukraine in the 19th century. Why? Because both families had many children and suffered from intolerance.

During Stalin’s rule, life in Baku was difficult for everyone, especially for Jews. Stalin wanted to build a country for Jews north of Siberia where living conditions were intolerable. For instance, her grandmother’s sister who lived in the Koluma Region, Azerbaijan, was sent to that futuristic planned Jew region where she was held and was brain washed for 17 years. When Stalin died, she returned to Baku with a mission to build Communism in Azerbaijan.
Hamsa

During the Communism period, life for Jews in Baku was difficult.

In Baku, the Gusman family is well known. Her father, an architect built many buildings in Baku still standing today.

Madam Tatyana’s formal studies took place in Baku. She received elite education, earned a law degree and practiced law. “In Soviet times many Jews became lawyers” she states.
About the Azerbaijan Judicial System

The “moderating hubs” for France’s social media are generally located in French-speaking countries with cheap labor, in North Africa and Madagascar. In France, rumors abound that Facebook’s moderators are located in French-speaking Muslim countries such as Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco. Facebook never confirms or denies outsourcing its “moderation” work to companies employing cheap Muslim labor in North Africa.

Notably, Muslim hate-speakers continue to proliferate on Facebook, while anti-Islamists face harassment and the loss of their accounts.

These Facebook users, like dozens of others, seem to be the victims of Islamist “packs”. Once the opinions and analyses of these Facebook users are noticed, they are denounced to Facebook as “racists” or “Islamophobes” and their accounts are deleted.

Fatiha Boudjalat, the co-founder of the secularist movement Viv(r)e la République, is a prominent figure of anti-Islamism in France. She is interviewed regularly on television and radio, and her op-eds are regularly published in Le Figaro. Recently, on Facebook, Boudjalat criticized strongly an Islamist government employee, Sonia Nour, for calling the Tunisian Islamist murderer of two women in Marseille, a “martyr”. A few weeks after that, Boudjalat’s Facebook account was deleted.

She is not alone in having been targeted by Islamists on Facebook. Leila Ourzik, an artist who lives in Grigny, a predominantly Muslim suburb not far from Paris, is a Muslim who eats and drinks openly during Ramadan and resists wearing the Islamic veil. Because of her un-Islamic behavior, she is openly insulted and threatened daily, as well as on social networks. On Facebook, Ourzik became a target. Islamists harassed her with insults and threats, posted her picture on pornography websites, and finally succeeded in obtaining the deletion of her account on Facebook. Suddenly, without warning, her Facebook account was shut. “Not once, many times” she says to Gatestone. Why? “I do not know, they never tell you. But one day, it is over, everything is deleted”.

Olivier Aron, a dentist and former politician, was taken off Facebook for weeks. Aron is active in debates about Islam and Islamism. He is also not shy. On Facebook, he contradicts Islamists. Islamists, however, do not seem interested in debating. They seem interested in censoring. According to Aron, many of them complained to Facebook. “I suppose they accused me of being a racist and an Islamophobe” Aron said. “Intimidation is everyplace. A man I do not even know discovered my telephone number and all my contact details and sent them to his friends”. Consequences were not long in coming. Aron’s assistant at the dental office received a frightening phone call: “Tell doctor Aron that soon ‘Kelkal’ will hit him”. Kelkal, an Algerian Islamist terrorist, was a member of the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) and responsible for the wave of attacks in France during the summer of 1995. Although Kelkal was killed by the police 20 years ago, for many radicalized Muslims, he remains the prototype of “modern” jihadist.

Last spring, Michel Renard, a history teacher in Saint Chamond, was also deleted from Facebook. “Without any warning, without any possibility of talking to someone, suddenly all my writings were gone,” he told Gatestone. Renard had posted online extremely detailed analyses of Islamism. “But,” he said, “Islamists are extremely active on Facebook. They insult you; they threaten you”. Even though Renard refused to be “friended” on Facebook by his pupils, “their parents complained to the director of the school… Intimidation is everywhere, in real life and on the Net”.

These Facebook users, like dozens of others, seem to be the victims of Islamist “packs”. Once the opinions and analyses of these Facebook users are noticed, they are denounced to Facebook as “racists” or “Islamophobes” and their accounts are deleted.

In France, Facebook deletes thousands of accounts every year. It would be interesting to know how many among them were deleted because their owners questioned Islamism, but no one knows: Facebook never communicates other than by bland boilerplate declarations that clearly seem intended to avoid explaining anything.

What we do know is that “Facebook has 4,500 ‘content moderators’ and that it recently announced plans to hire another 3,000”, according to The Guardian. 7,500 moderators for more than two billion Facebook users? That is ridiculous.

The Guardian continues: “There are moderating hubs around the world, but Facebook refuses to disclose their exact number or locations”. The question should be, in fact: Does Facebook outsource content moderation to subcontractors, and if so, to which?

In France, three companies appear to be competing as subcontractors for moderating online content: Netino, Concileo and Atchik Services. The “moderating hubs” of these companies are generally located in French-speaking countries with cheap labor, in North Africa and Madagascar. In France, rumors abound that Facebook’s moderators are located in French-speaking Muslim countries such as Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco. Facebook never confirms or denies outsourcing its “moderation” work to companies employing cheap Muslim labor in North Africa.

Notably, Muslim hate-speakers continue to proliferate on Facebook, while anti-Islamists face harassment and the loss of their accounts.

It is a symptom of the dominant denial in the French media that it keeps repeating — despite massive evidence to the contrary — that “Islamism is not at war with Western culture.” As a consequence, freedom of speech in France is now “moderated” by Muslims in Muslim countries.